Spectrum 290. The Renegades

Rights Information
Year
1978
Reference
21877
Media type
Audio
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Rights Information
Year
1978
Reference
21877
Media type
Audio
Duration
00:35:51
Credits
RNZ Collection
Ahu, John, Interviewee
Perkins, Jack (b.1940), Interviewer
Radio New Zealand (estab. 1989), Broadcaster

Spectrum was a long-running weekly radio documentary series which captured the
essence of New Zealand from 1972 to 2016. Alwyn Owen and Jack Perkins produced the series for many years, creating a valuable library of New Zealand oral history.

The episode opens with John Ahu, a volunteer social worker, organising a meeting with some parents and the Renegades about a letter that has come from Hamilton City Council in which local shopkeepers complain about young gang members hanging around their shops. John Ahu points out that this sounds like stereotyping.

About 30 teenagers, mostly Māori, are a part of the Renegades gang who have no money or anyone to help them. Ahu has organised a work collective so they can take on labouring jobs, but still find employers reluctant to take them on.

At a weekly meeting the leaders of the Renegades and Ahu discuss their problems. Sometimes they are joined by other members of the community and this week it is Rangi, a volunteer social worker involved with gangs in the Huntly area.

Ahu, works as an insurance agent as well as volunteering as a social worker. He left
school at 14 years of age. Ahu describes the Renegades gang as sharing most of the same values as other youth groups in the community. He acknowledges some members who are illiterate.

Ahu describes how he views gang members; their ego and greed but also, their fear of persecution and their love for one another. Members of the Renegades describe being locked out of employment. One member explains that although he can screen print, and designed and printed the gang’s patches, he’s unable to get a job as a screen printer.

Other members include a welder and butcher, both skilled but unable to find a job as they’re discriminated against. They enjoy working together and so have created a labour co-operative which embraces how members want to work and hope to have a training programme set up. Ahu hopes that these boys will one day run the co-operative themselves.

A member describes the support that they provide for each other and how they especially look out for younger members, like running dances to keep kids off the street at night. Spokesmen from the Renegades go to schools to encourage kids to stay in school. Ahu describes how little support members receive from their parents or from official organisations and many having lost trust in those organisations.

Perkins interviews two members who have found work tending the grounds at Waikato University. Led by Ron Lysaght and his assistant Don Barnicott. Lysaght works with young people who have had significant difficulties in their lives. Some are homeless, others have difficulty at home, or with their peers or the police.

Accommodation has also been difficult; a landlord who observed they were gang members asked them to leave. We hear members attending a meeting at the Tenants Protection Agency because they have just been forced out of their accommodation. TPA is looking at the circumstances of their eviction.

They meet with a group of parents who are worried about the behaviour of their teenagers. A Renegades spokesman, Dave encourages open communication and speaks about the importance of trust. Parents ask Dave for advice and help about their wayward teens. The programme closes with Ahu imploring parents to help with their young people more.