July 19, 2026 • 23 mins
Angus Gillies is the author of the so-called Ruatoria Killings series of non-fiction investigations. He has worked as a journalist and producer at TV3 for 20 years, and has written biographies of Matthew Ridge, Adam Parore, Justin Marshall and John Rowles.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News talk S ed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real life with John Cowen
on News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
You know, and welcome to real Life. Angus Gillies is
a television producer and author of mini books and so
welcome Angus. Hi John, How I'm doing well? Thank you?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
So?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
First off, how's the hand?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I can know about that hand? Okay, I've got the
phone here on speaker because I find it hard to
hold the phone to my ear with the other hand. Yeah,
it's sure, it's broken. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I've heard the book tours promoting books is pretty grueling,
but yours has been particularly painful.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah. I was on my way from christ Church to
Blenham and stopped off just before Kaikoura and thought I
wandered down to the sea and on the way I
kind of tripped over and before I knew it, I
was hurtling full speed towards the water and I couldn't
get my footing and went down on my stomach and
(01:29):
my hands. Luckily I didn't hit my head, and yeah,
broke my head and then had to carry on driving
to go to Blenham and then did the event and
drove back to christ Church. So it's an eventful week.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It actually sounded quite grim because you're off the road,
you're down by the water. The only witness is a seal.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, I lost my vision for a couple of minutes there.
It was weird. I don't know it was blood pressure,
what the story was. But and then when I finally
got my vision back, there's little seal. Maybe he's attracted
by my bloodied hands or something. I don't know that
I'd just washed in the water. But yeah, it was
not the normal way to do things.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Oh that adds awful. I hope it heels up really quickly.
But you were on your way to promote your latest book,
the latest of many books. I would have talked to
you about television or talked to you about your books,
but your latest book sounds fascinating. It's about the five
oh ones five oh ones, the reluctant returnees. Now we've
(02:34):
all heard about the five oh ones when Australia changed
the rules back but probably twenty fourteen, and have been
sending back kiwis that have got in trouble over the
other side of a ditch and it hasn't gone well
for them, really has it.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
No, it hasn't.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
And it was a pretty disastrous decision by Peter Dutton
and Tony Morrison from our point of view and for
the people who were sent back, because these guys have
gone over there with their families, often as kids, and
they had to go out and make their life over there,
(03:10):
and a lot of the family had. But you know,
in every family, not everyone's going to be a complete success.
They're going to try different things, or they're going to
go off the tracks of it. And with a lot
of these people, if they had twelve months in jail,
they are automatically sent back home and there was no
one here. The family had gone. The family was in
(03:30):
Australia now, so it was pretty rough for these guys.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, and it just seems so unfair that those that
would say done a jail term and they're released and
expecting to get back into their life again and they
get pounced upon.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Well, I remember the first time I heard about it
was a guy called Steve Christensen, who had been our
chief of staff at three News, which was later at
News Hub. He called me from Ozzie years with and
SBS from me said, mate, you're not going to believe it.
There's Keywis that have done their jail sentences, but if
it's anything over a year or a year or more,
(04:06):
they're putting them into tention centers and they're going to
send them all back to New Zealand. And it just
seemed kind of dystopian, you know, it seemed fairly harsh.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And these detention centers, and these detention centers were pretty
grim too.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Oh yeah, the Christmas Island sounds like it was the worst.
One guy talked to in the book, C. J. Kellen
Hughes he was in there well you know obviously a
lot of other guys who became five oh ones, and
he said they had a mini riot there because of
the conditions, and he ended up in like a cage
(04:47):
for two months. Like, he spent a month in there,
and then his mate, who was in another cage, you know, nearby,
he got out after a month, but Callen hadn't behaved
as well as he should have, so he got another month.
And that was the two months before he came to
New Zealand. So instead of setting up a life when
(05:09):
he came back. He was just in this cage and
he was stuck in there with two other guys who
he described as lunatics. One of them tried to kill himself,
you know, the first night he was in there. So
CJ said that those two months he spent in that
(05:30):
cage in Christmas Island are the most traumatizing two months
of his whole life, being incarcerated anywhere, and he's been
in jail's you know, in Australia and New Zealand and
are still in jail.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Well, some people would say they don't have a lot
of sympathy for these guys because they're criminals. They shouldn't
have been doing bad stuff in the first place. But
some of the detainees weren't even criminals. They were just
people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time,
or hanging out with the wrong people.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Well, I suppose it's criminals and criminals, and there's criminals
and criminals, and then there are people who are just
not wriminals. And Peter Dutton, who was the Immigration minister
at the time, had the power to deport people based
on character. So a couple of guys I spoke to
(06:23):
Leakepulia in particular, were just sent back because of bad character,
and that meant he was in the Rebels motorcycle club,
but he hadn't committed any crime, had never been to
prison in his life, and one day the police and
gang police and other agencies swooped on him as he
(06:46):
was on his way to work as a carpet layer
and took him into the maximum security prison in Perth,
and he was in there for six months and then
from there taken to the tension center. And everyone I
spoke to he said that attention center was far worse
than prison, And a lot of people said that, you know,
(07:07):
there were guys in the detention centers who were worth
a second chance, guys who might have you know, who
are grandfathers or something, and it might have just been
there on bad character or some minor minor crime and
misdemeanor and they ended up being sent back at or
apart from it, they were stuck in a detention center.
(07:29):
Would really hardened criminals, and often they would you know,
come under their influence and end up committing far as
crimes that they would have imagined eighteen months earlier.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
And what are their typical reactions to well experiences Once
they get to the side of the Dutch.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Well, the first one is that they say that when
they were sent back, they were told on the other
side that once they hit that tarmac in New Zealand,
they were free. But once they hit the tarmac in
New Zealand, there were police waiting and a probation officer
and handcuffs and a DNA test and a blood test,
(08:14):
and they're it free and they had to go under probation.
And one of the guys that I spoke to, David Orbeta,
he said that that's your poorfully, that's you welcome home.
And if someone had been there and said welcome home,
(08:36):
that might have made a huge difference. But when you're
kind of sent back and treaded like you're not wanted
straight away, a lot of them kind of just give
the country the middle finger, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And the result has been basically with important Ossie style
gangs with their better I think I think you've called
it craft. I think of being able to be criminals,
the important dustrial.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I borrowed that term from Craig Williams,
who's the boss of the National Organized Crime Group, and
he was saying that, you know, interestingly, you know, the
advent of the Five Runs it did change New Zealand's
criminal landscape forever because it sped up the speed with
(09:32):
which these Bussie gangs were coming into New Zealand. They
might have made their way eventually anyway, because New Zealand
is such a big drug market for anyone wanting to
sell drugs, because Kiwis will pay more than most other countries,
it turns out. But when they had you know, chapter
(09:54):
gang chapter leaders, enforces, secretaries, you know, highly ranked gang
members come back. It didn't take that many. And then
they start up a branch over here, and before long
they're importing industrial volumes of meth and phetamine and they know,
you know, how to do the encryption, They know how
(10:15):
to they know all the systems that are needed. And
the Aussie gangs are not like what we were used
to in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know, they seem like boy scouts by comparison to
some of these Aussie gangs. Hey, if you just tuned
in my guest tonight, Angus Gillies. He's written a book
called five oh Ones, The Reluctant Returnees, And you might
be thinking, oh, I haven't got a lot of sympathy
for these criminals. But some of the stories in his
book will actually truly impress you that some of these
people actually have straightened up in a flying right. So
(10:46):
we'll be back with Angus in just a minute. This
is a real life on John Cown and you're listening
to news Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news
Talk ZEDB. I guess tonight is Angus Gillies and that's
(11:14):
the Beatles. Angus isn't singing of the Beatles. But I
bet you wish you had been.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I loved you.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
You're a bit of an old school music person.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah, yeah, I remember hearing that song for the first
time when I was about nine or ten and a
schoolmate's place woke up and he was still fast asleep.
I ten on the transistor radio, caught the last thirty
seconds or so of that song, and then just what
was it? What was it? Then fix months later hearing
(11:47):
a bit more of it, and eventually, you know, a
bit of a time discovering get back, and you know,
I've been discovering stuff about it ever since.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
All right, No, it's a great, great track. Hey, before
the Brink, We're talking about your latest book. And by
the way, I want to talk about more than the book.
I want to talk a bit about you. But we're
talking about five or ones reluctant returning And the lovely
thing in the book is the fact that some of them, yeah,
of course, have gone on to start huge careers as criminals,
(12:18):
but others aren't. Others are actually doing really well. Give
us an example of some of the people that you've
encountered that have actually straightened up.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
There was a few that spring to mind straight away
is David Abeta, who I mentioned, who has come back.
When he came back, he was fully addicted to drugs.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
He was on.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
A group of morphine I think it is, which is
like a heroine replacement, and he was wanting to sort
his life out.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And then he.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Basically got a job doing moving, you know, moving stuff,
moving trucks, and then eventually managed to wean himself off off.
But the trick for him was he found faith, and
not necessarily in the organized religion, but he kind of
believes in a higher power and that worked for him.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Was that a common thread for some of these guys
that have done wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
He yeah, he says, it's a lot of these guys
have found faith and you know, I suppose there you
need a little bit of help and it's a bigger
it's a bigger problem then you can handle on your own.
And they gather a little bit of strength that way.
And he was saying, it could be uh, you know,
it could be Christianity or Jesus, it could be Buddha,
(13:43):
it could be Islam. He said, a lot of guys
have discovered as the Maori guys and you know, lots
of things. You know, he helped them out. Another couple
of got people that I spoke to were lead to Puja,
who I mentioned before. He came back and he realized
(14:09):
he had to choose his family or choose his motorcycle club.
And he had to choose his motorcycle club and he
started a boxing gym down in Brenham and he's working
with youth down there. Has become a social worker. And
the other one that I'll mention just quickly is Amanda Walker.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Who.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Did prison time for trafficking drugs in Queensland, but she
came back here and again studied social work and she
really wants to help women who were in the same
position that she was because a lot of people say
that they don't feel like people coming home. They feel
(14:54):
like refugees who have been kicked out of their what
they consider their home. Because someone like Amanda, she can't
go back and see her son. You know, Lee still
has family over there. CJ's kids have growing up over there,
you know, been brought up by his mum. And Mark
Kulana is another guy who has came back here. He
(15:17):
had gone on a gun rampage when he was a
young fellow. He was an up and coming league player,
him and his brother. His brother went on to play NRL.
Mark suffered injuries, He got into the drug scene, went
on a kind of a drug injuice psychotic gun rampage,
ended up in prison, had more drugs in prison than
(15:38):
he did outside. Went and had another drug injuice psychosis,
and then got onto antipsychotics, got sent, decided to come
back and moved to christ Church to be away from
bad influences in Auckland. His wife stood by him and
he had the thing he had to get off when
he got back was the antipsychotic medicine and he has
(16:02):
done that and now he's helping at risk youth with
construction where you get an apprenticeship to his trade and
he's teaching kids now. So now there are some people
who have just taken the ball and ran with it
and done incredibly well.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It's great to hear stories of people challenging the stereotypes.
They're not just bad eggs, that people that can straighten up,
and you believe everyone can change.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
I do. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I think when I was younger, I ended up in
a few AA meetings and as do that. I don't
think I was an alcoholic. I just was a binge drinker,
but I did go to those meetings and it was
incredible seeing people who had been in the gutter one
(16:51):
week and get them two or three weeks sober and
they seem pretty normal, right.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I mean when you were running around the running around
the field playing for Saint Mary's Celtic with your nine
year old mate, that you listen to that Beatles song
with you would have been you. It would have been
soaking up a little bit of Catholic background that was
where your family came from, wasn't And I'm just wondering
where were these stories of change and getting straightened out
where that resonates with some of the stuff you would
(17:17):
have heard back then.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Oh yes, I'm not the best practicing Catholic by any
means these days, but I still support Glasgow Celtic. They
were this Catholic team and Gasgow and Dad was on
their books as a footballer when he was a teenager, yeap.
And we were brought up with that almost like mythology,
I suppose. And one thing I know that the Catholic
(17:45):
Church comes in for a lot of fact that one
thing I've always held quite dear to me about the
style of Catholicism that I was brought up with was
that the meat sell and here at the earth, I suppose.
And that was one of the reasons I liked Polk
Francis because he reminded me of one of those parish
(18:05):
priests that might have been biking around the community and
you know, being involved in looks. You know, I'm not
a huge fan of organized religion. But I'll tell you
one thing. Dad died last year and my mother and
(18:25):
they were both very strong Catholics. And there were two things.
Dad got dementia mainly from hitting the ball, we all think,
but he got dementia really bad. And the second thing,
the second last thing, to go was the mouth organ.
He would always play amazing Scottish country dance and Irish
(18:46):
dance music on the mouth organ. And then the last thing.
I remember one time going back to Grisbond, where they're from,
and saying, okay, Dad, look, we'll say our rosary because
I knew Dad love to say the rosary, and it
blew me away. He could say that rosary perfectly, and
every other minute of every other hour seemed to be
(19:09):
just gibberish and incoherent, but he could say that rosary perfectly. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, I'm sorry that you lost your parents last year.
I know that your dad was huge in your life
and you wrote a book about him.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, I did, actually, because Dad was one of these
amazing back on tours and he wrote books himself, and
he was the editor of the Gisbane Herald for about
thirty six years. Oh actually, yeah, what thirty six years?
Because we've been a reporter and everything before that, and
we grew up on these stories. Dad was like, I
(19:45):
could work in a national newsroom, but he could make
a story about the Gisbone Herald newsroom sounds so much
more interesting than anything that might be happening at the
Dominion or you know, TV three or any of these
other newsrooms around the country. Just the way you could
(20:07):
tell a story just made it seem so dramatic.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I do remember seeing I do remember seeing a headline
in the Gisbone Herald police hunt for Maschetti wielding drug fiends.
You don't know anything about that story there.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I remember it.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Actually, it wasn't me, It was it you, Okay, refused
to something that.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
And the teenage kind of strata that I was in
social strata people used to cut down cactuses and boil
up the cactuss to make drugs. And yeah, that's what
that headline was about. Mine that wrote that headline.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Ah well, It's one of the things that you've done
is you've written a lot of books of all sorts
of different things. You've written biographies, not just your dad,
but mainly of sports heroes. And you've also written a
lot of gritty fiction. And I wonder if any of
your heroes in the gritty fiction ever used hot chips
as an offensive weapon thrust into the face of another person.
(21:25):
Have you got a minute.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yes, Growing up in Gisbon, I've been to Tel Aviv,
I've been to Glasgow, London, and I often say to
people that growing up in gives them in the eighties
was the roughest place, you know, you could be if
you were young too, drunk and swagging around the place,
you know, right, my friends and I were. And I
(21:47):
remember one time, oh, I've had a run in with
a guy about my own age at the picture theaters.
And then about three years later, this guy I just
come out of the takeaway bar with a hot sing
of chips, and I was walking down the road with
my mate Steve Simmons, and this guy was running up
(22:09):
and I goes, do you remember me? And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
with running a few years ago. And he said, well,
why don't we have a fight, you know, And I'm like, oh, no, no, no,
I'm going to piece these days, you know. And anyway,
this guy made a lunch at me. But while he
was talking to me, I was undoing the hot chips,
(22:30):
and so when he LUNs at me, I ducked and
subbed hot.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Hey, I just wish we had more time to talk
about this. It's not just the five O ones that
straighten up and fly right. You've come from a rough background.
It sounds like that you've written some fantastic books. Do
track down five oh ones Reluctant Returnees and it's well
worth a read. But also at Google Angus Gillies and
you'll see that there's heaps of books that he's written
about news, about people, and about the things that are
(22:59):
going on in New Zealand. Angus, thank you so much
for taking the time. All the best for your book
and for your hand. And it's been great talking with you.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
And thank you John that we're in a few places
there was excusing.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Okay, cheers, all right, this is real life. I'm John
Cad looking forward to be back with you again next
Sunday night.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
For more from News
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Talks at b listen live on air or online, and
keep our shows with you wherever you go with our
podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News talk S ed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real life with John Cowen
on News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
You know, and welcome to real Life. Angus Gillies is
a television producer and author of mini books and so
welcome Angus. Hi John, How I'm doing well? Thank you?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
So?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
First off, how's the hand?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I can know about that hand? Okay, I've got the
phone here on speaker because I find it hard to
hold the phone to my ear with the other hand. Yeah,
it's sure, it's broken. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I've heard the book tours promoting books is pretty grueling,
but yours has been particularly painful.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah. I was on my way from christ Church to
Blenham and stopped off just before Kaikoura and thought I
wandered down to the sea and on the way I
kind of tripped over and before I knew it, I
was hurtling full speed towards the water and I couldn't
get my footing and went down on my stomach and
(01:29):
my hands. Luckily I didn't hit my head, and yeah,
broke my head and then had to carry on driving
to go to Blenham and then did the event and
drove back to christ Church. So it's an eventful week.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It actually sounded quite grim because you're off the road,
you're down by the water. The only witness is a seal.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, I lost my vision for a couple of minutes there.
It was weird. I don't know it was blood pressure,
what the story was. But and then when I finally
got my vision back, there's little seal. Maybe he's attracted
by my bloodied hands or something. I don't know that
I'd just washed in the water. But yeah, it was
not the normal way to do things.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Oh that adds awful. I hope it heels up really quickly.
But you were on your way to promote your latest book,
the latest of many books. I would have talked to
you about television or talked to you about your books,
but your latest book sounds fascinating. It's about the five
oh ones five oh ones, the reluctant returnees. Now we've
(02:34):
all heard about the five oh ones when Australia changed
the rules back but probably twenty fourteen, and have been
sending back kiwis that have got in trouble over the
other side of a ditch and it hasn't gone well
for them, really has it.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
No, it hasn't.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
And it was a pretty disastrous decision by Peter Dutton
and Tony Morrison from our point of view and for
the people who were sent back, because these guys have
gone over there with their families, often as kids, and
they had to go out and make their life over there,
(03:10):
and a lot of the family had. But you know,
in every family, not everyone's going to be a complete success.
They're going to try different things, or they're going to
go off the tracks of it. And with a lot
of these people, if they had twelve months in jail,
they are automatically sent back home and there was no
one here. The family had gone. The family was in
(03:30):
Australia now, so it was pretty rough for these guys.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, and it just seems so unfair that those that
would say done a jail term and they're released and
expecting to get back into their life again and they
get pounced upon.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Well, I remember the first time I heard about it
was a guy called Steve Christensen, who had been our
chief of staff at three News, which was later at
News Hub. He called me from Ozzie years with and
SBS from me said, mate, you're not going to believe it.
There's Keywis that have done their jail sentences, but if
it's anything over a year or a year or more,
(04:06):
they're putting them into tention centers and they're going to
send them all back to New Zealand. And it just
seemed kind of dystopian, you know, it seemed fairly harsh.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And these detention centers, and these detention centers were pretty
grim too.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Oh yeah, the Christmas Island sounds like it was the worst.
One guy talked to in the book, C. J. Kellen
Hughes he was in there well you know obviously a
lot of other guys who became five oh ones, and
he said they had a mini riot there because of
the conditions, and he ended up in like a cage
(04:47):
for two months. Like, he spent a month in there,
and then his mate, who was in another cage, you know, nearby,
he got out after a month, but Callen hadn't behaved
as well as he should have, so he got another month.
And that was the two months before he came to
New Zealand. So instead of setting up a life when
(05:09):
he came back. He was just in this cage and
he was stuck in there with two other guys who
he described as lunatics. One of them tried to kill himself,
you know, the first night he was in there. So
CJ said that those two months he spent in that
(05:30):
cage in Christmas Island are the most traumatizing two months
of his whole life, being incarcerated anywhere, and he's been
in jail's you know, in Australia and New Zealand and
are still in jail.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Well, some people would say they don't have a lot
of sympathy for these guys because they're criminals. They shouldn't
have been doing bad stuff in the first place. But
some of the detainees weren't even criminals. They were just
people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time,
or hanging out with the wrong people.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Well, I suppose it's criminals and criminals, and there's criminals
and criminals, and then there are people who are just
not wriminals. And Peter Dutton, who was the Immigration minister
at the time, had the power to deport people based
on character. So a couple of guys I spoke to
(06:23):
Leakepulia in particular, were just sent back because of bad character,
and that meant he was in the Rebels motorcycle club,
but he hadn't committed any crime, had never been to
prison in his life, and one day the police and
gang police and other agencies swooped on him as he
(06:46):
was on his way to work as a carpet layer
and took him into the maximum security prison in Perth,
and he was in there for six months and then
from there taken to the tension center. And everyone I
spoke to he said that attention center was far worse
than prison, And a lot of people said that, you know,
(07:07):
there were guys in the detention centers who were worth
a second chance, guys who might have you know, who
are grandfathers or something, and it might have just been
there on bad character or some minor minor crime and
misdemeanor and they ended up being sent back at or
apart from it, they were stuck in a detention center.
(07:29):
Would really hardened criminals, and often they would you know,
come under their influence and end up committing far as
crimes that they would have imagined eighteen months earlier.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
And what are their typical reactions to well experiences Once
they get to the side of the Dutch.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Well, the first one is that they say that when
they were sent back, they were told on the other
side that once they hit that tarmac in New Zealand,
they were free. But once they hit the tarmac in
New Zealand, there were police waiting and a probation officer
and handcuffs and a DNA test and a blood test,
(08:14):
and they're it free and they had to go under probation.
And one of the guys that I spoke to, David Orbeta,
he said that that's your poorfully, that's you welcome home.
And if someone had been there and said welcome home,
(08:36):
that might have made a huge difference. But when you're
kind of sent back and treaded like you're not wanted
straight away, a lot of them kind of just give
the country the middle finger, I suppose.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And the result has been basically with important Ossie style
gangs with their better I think I think you've called
it craft. I think of being able to be criminals,
the important dustrial.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I borrowed that term from Craig Williams,
who's the boss of the National Organized Crime Group, and
he was saying that, you know, interestingly, you know, the
advent of the Five Runs it did change New Zealand's
criminal landscape forever because it sped up the speed with
(09:32):
which these Bussie gangs were coming into New Zealand. They
might have made their way eventually anyway, because New Zealand
is such a big drug market for anyone wanting to
sell drugs, because Kiwis will pay more than most other countries,
it turns out. But when they had you know, chapter
(09:54):
gang chapter leaders, enforces, secretaries, you know, highly ranked gang
members come back. It didn't take that many. And then
they start up a branch over here, and before long
they're importing industrial volumes of meth and phetamine and they know,
you know, how to do the encryption, They know how
(10:15):
to they know all the systems that are needed. And
the Aussie gangs are not like what we were used
to in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know, they seem like boy scouts by comparison to
some of these Aussie gangs. Hey, if you just tuned
in my guest tonight, Angus Gillies. He's written a book
called five oh Ones, The Reluctant Returnees, And you might
be thinking, oh, I haven't got a lot of sympathy
for these criminals. But some of the stories in his
book will actually truly impress you that some of these
people actually have straightened up in a flying right. So
(10:46):
we'll be back with Angus in just a minute. This
is a real life on John Cown and you're listening
to news Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news
Talk ZEDB. I guess tonight is Angus Gillies and that's
(11:14):
the Beatles. Angus isn't singing of the Beatles. But I
bet you wish you had been.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I loved you.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
You're a bit of an old school music person.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah, yeah, I remember hearing that song for the first
time when I was about nine or ten and a
schoolmate's place woke up and he was still fast asleep.
I ten on the transistor radio, caught the last thirty
seconds or so of that song, and then just what
was it? What was it? Then fix months later hearing
(11:47):
a bit more of it, and eventually, you know, a
bit of a time discovering get back, and you know,
I've been discovering stuff about it ever since.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
All right, No, it's a great, great track. Hey, before
the Brink, We're talking about your latest book. And by
the way, I want to talk about more than the book.
I want to talk a bit about you. But we're
talking about five or ones reluctant returning And the lovely
thing in the book is the fact that some of them, yeah,
of course, have gone on to start huge careers as criminals,
(12:18):
but others aren't. Others are actually doing really well. Give
us an example of some of the people that you've
encountered that have actually straightened up.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
There was a few that spring to mind straight away
is David Abeta, who I mentioned, who has come back.
When he came back, he was fully addicted to drugs.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
He was on.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
A group of morphine I think it is, which is
like a heroine replacement, and he was wanting to sort
his life out.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And then he.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Basically got a job doing moving, you know, moving stuff,
moving trucks, and then eventually managed to wean himself off off.
But the trick for him was he found faith, and
not necessarily in the organized religion, but he kind of
believes in a higher power and that worked for him.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Was that a common thread for some of these guys
that have done wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
He yeah, he says, it's a lot of these guys
have found faith and you know, I suppose there you
need a little bit of help and it's a bigger
it's a bigger problem then you can handle on your own.
And they gather a little bit of strength that way.
And he was saying, it could be uh, you know,
it could be Christianity or Jesus, it could be Buddha,
(13:43):
it could be Islam. He said, a lot of guys
have discovered as the Maori guys and you know, lots
of things. You know, he helped them out. Another couple
of got people that I spoke to were lead to Puja,
who I mentioned before. He came back and he realized
(14:09):
he had to choose his family or choose his motorcycle club.
And he had to choose his motorcycle club and he
started a boxing gym down in Brenham and he's working
with youth down there. Has become a social worker. And
the other one that I'll mention just quickly is Amanda Walker.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Who.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Did prison time for trafficking drugs in Queensland, but she
came back here and again studied social work and she
really wants to help women who were in the same
position that she was because a lot of people say
that they don't feel like people coming home. They feel
(14:54):
like refugees who have been kicked out of their what
they consider their home. Because someone like Amanda, she can't
go back and see her son. You know, Lee still
has family over there. CJ's kids have growing up over there,
you know, been brought up by his mum. And Mark
Kulana is another guy who has came back here. He
(15:17):
had gone on a gun rampage when he was a
young fellow. He was an up and coming league player,
him and his brother. His brother went on to play NRL.
Mark suffered injuries, He got into the drug scene, went
on a kind of a drug injuice psychotic gun rampage,
ended up in prison, had more drugs in prison than
(15:38):
he did outside. Went and had another drug injuice psychosis,
and then got onto antipsychotics, got sent, decided to come
back and moved to christ Church to be away from
bad influences in Auckland. His wife stood by him and
he had the thing he had to get off when
he got back was the antipsychotic medicine and he has
(16:02):
done that and now he's helping at risk youth with
construction where you get an apprenticeship to his trade and
he's teaching kids now. So now there are some people
who have just taken the ball and ran with it
and done incredibly well.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It's great to hear stories of people challenging the stereotypes.
They're not just bad eggs, that people that can straighten up,
and you believe everyone can change.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
I do. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I think when I was younger, I ended up in
a few AA meetings and as do that. I don't
think I was an alcoholic. I just was a binge drinker,
but I did go to those meetings and it was
incredible seeing people who had been in the gutter one
(16:51):
week and get them two or three weeks sober and
they seem pretty normal, right.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I mean when you were running around the running around
the field playing for Saint Mary's Celtic with your nine
year old mate, that you listen to that Beatles song
with you would have been you. It would have been
soaking up a little bit of Catholic background that was
where your family came from, wasn't And I'm just wondering
where were these stories of change and getting straightened out
where that resonates with some of the stuff you would
(17:17):
have heard back then.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Oh yes, I'm not the best practicing Catholic by any
means these days, but I still support Glasgow Celtic. They
were this Catholic team and Gasgow and Dad was on
their books as a footballer when he was a teenager, yeap.
And we were brought up with that almost like mythology,
I suppose. And one thing I know that the Catholic
(17:45):
Church comes in for a lot of fact that one
thing I've always held quite dear to me about the
style of Catholicism that I was brought up with was
that the meat sell and here at the earth, I suppose.
And that was one of the reasons I liked Polk
Francis because he reminded me of one of those parish
(18:05):
priests that might have been biking around the community and
you know, being involved in looks. You know, I'm not
a huge fan of organized religion. But I'll tell you
one thing. Dad died last year and my mother and
(18:25):
they were both very strong Catholics. And there were two things.
Dad got dementia mainly from hitting the ball, we all think,
but he got dementia really bad. And the second thing,
the second last thing, to go was the mouth organ.
He would always play amazing Scottish country dance and Irish
(18:46):
dance music on the mouth organ. And then the last thing.
I remember one time going back to Grisbond, where they're from,
and saying, okay, Dad, look, we'll say our rosary because
I knew Dad love to say the rosary, and it
blew me away. He could say that rosary perfectly, and
every other minute of every other hour seemed to be
(19:09):
just gibberish and incoherent, but he could say that rosary perfectly. Right.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, I'm sorry that you lost your parents last year.
I know that your dad was huge in your life
and you wrote a book about him.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, I did, actually, because Dad was one of these
amazing back on tours and he wrote books himself, and
he was the editor of the Gisbane Herald for about
thirty six years. Oh actually, yeah, what thirty six years?
Because we've been a reporter and everything before that, and
we grew up on these stories. Dad was like, I
(19:45):
could work in a national newsroom, but he could make
a story about the Gisbone Herald newsroom sounds so much
more interesting than anything that might be happening at the
Dominion or you know, TV three or any of these
other newsrooms around the country. Just the way you could
(20:07):
tell a story just made it seem so dramatic.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I do remember seeing I do remember seeing a headline
in the Gisbone Herald police hunt for Maschetti wielding drug fiends.
You don't know anything about that story there.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I remember it.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Actually, it wasn't me, It was it you, Okay, refused
to something that.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
And the teenage kind of strata that I was in
social strata people used to cut down cactuses and boil
up the cactuss to make drugs. And yeah, that's what
that headline was about. Mine that wrote that headline.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Ah well, It's one of the things that you've done
is you've written a lot of books of all sorts
of different things. You've written biographies, not just your dad,
but mainly of sports heroes. And you've also written a
lot of gritty fiction. And I wonder if any of
your heroes in the gritty fiction ever used hot chips
as an offensive weapon thrust into the face of another person.
(21:25):
Have you got a minute.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yes, Growing up in Gisbon, I've been to Tel Aviv,
I've been to Glasgow, London, and I often say to
people that growing up in gives them in the eighties
was the roughest place, you know, you could be if
you were young too, drunk and swagging around the place,
you know, right, my friends and I were. And I
(21:47):
remember one time, oh, I've had a run in with
a guy about my own age at the picture theaters.
And then about three years later, this guy I just
come out of the takeaway bar with a hot sing
of chips, and I was walking down the road with
my mate Steve Simmons, and this guy was running up
(22:09):
and I goes, do you remember me? And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah,
with running a few years ago. And he said, well,
why don't we have a fight, you know, And I'm like, oh, no, no, no,
I'm going to piece these days, you know. And anyway,
this guy made a lunch at me. But while he
was talking to me, I was undoing the hot chips,
(22:30):
and so when he LUNs at me, I ducked and
subbed hot.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Hey, I just wish we had more time to talk
about this. It's not just the five O ones that
straighten up and fly right. You've come from a rough background.
It sounds like that you've written some fantastic books. Do
track down five oh ones Reluctant Returnees and it's well
worth a read. But also at Google Angus Gillies and
you'll see that there's heaps of books that he's written
about news, about people, and about the things that are
(22:59):
going on in New Zealand. Angus, thank you so much
for taking the time. All the best for your book
and for your hand. And it's been great talking with you.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
And thank you John that we're in a few places
there was excusing.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Okay, cheers, all right, this is real life. I'm John
Cad looking forward to be back with you again next
Sunday night.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
For more from News
Speaker 1 (23:51):
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