The Chaser Report - ARVO: Matt Harvey Survived Robo-Debt

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

In this Arvo Edition Charles and Dom are joined by writer for The Shot and The Shovel, comedian Matt Harvey. Matt talks about the time he got screwed over by RoboDebt, how it's affected him, and how his new show 'Wage Against The Machine' shares his new perspective on wealth disparity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report. Afternoon Edition for Wednesday, the 2nd of February. I'm Charles Firth and Dom. Nice to have you back. Hello, nice to be back. Yeah, no, that Jockovich fired me. So on this afternoon's podcast, we've got a very interesting character. His name's Matt Harvey,

and he's actually been writing for The Shot, which is our sister website for the last few months, as well as The Shovel, which is, of course, the satirical website based on. Oh, yes, the best new satire site in Australia. No, no, our main rival and the worst satire website in the country. Hello, Matt. Hello, you can expect a barrage of a chaser-focused stories after that.

I mean, you'll have to get in the news first, but I guess we'll find a way to take it down. You didn't always used to do sort of comedy writing, did you? You actually started life working for Centrelink for a while, didn't you? I don't know if you can call. receiving Centrelink payments working for Centrelink. I mean, I mean, work for the doll is definitely, they put you to work. So I guess you could say yes. And so what was that like?

So what happened there? They've been an interesting, because I ended up with a Robo Debt from them. Oh, really? You're going to the Robo Debt people, were you? Yeah, yeah. Then I came back to fight them. Oh, you fought them? No, my debt was $20,000.

And was it wrong? Was it untrue? A good chunk of it was untrue. They claim some of it is still true. So the nice thing is I get a little part-time unpaid internship with Cinellink correcting my own debt. Are they still doing that? Like after all the scandal and all the controversy and all the apology, they are still targeting people. And people for whom, you know, 20 grand is an absolutely insanely large amount of money.

Because the whole point is these are people who don't have much money. money and need help. Yeah, yeah, there's still debts in place, ones that were created during that period using the income averaging method. And because there was only,

there was four categories that came from that and only one of them actually erased debt. The rest of them were just so like, all right, we were wrong, but you haven't paid anything so you don't have to do anything. And there was ones that were

Like, no, we were right, unless you can prove us wrong. Right. So having acknowledged that the whole of our system is a complete piece of shit that is rid of with errors, you have to prove, you have to somehow debug and hack into our mainframe to prove that we were wrong. This is really tough. Yeah, it's pretty wild. The system is a mess. And they've acknowledged that it's a mess by, you know, giving out a $1.2 billion,

dollar payment to people with no compensation, just the base payment. And then a lot of the debts, like at least mine, the majority of my debt still exists. And I've got to prove my innocence. So could we perhaps arrange things that whoever designed the Centrelink computer system got a letter saying you are one billion dollars in debt to the Australian people and you have to basically keep working until you've paid the amount to that, or at least fix the system? Well, yeah, I would think that fixing the system would be key, especially because at the moment, there's a few scandals regarding ministerial spending in amounts like $37,000 to Tim Wilson and I think Josh Frydenberg had some issues with clearing people's debts that turned out to be debts that he couldn't clear.

Oh, but they're just allowed to pay them back, aren't they, at their own pace? Maybe what we should do is write to the government and say, you need to prove to us that all of those. car parks for 680 million or whatever it was were needed and if they're not you have to pay for them yeah exactly they've got to yeah exactly they're going to put it in the work they've got to prove because i what i had to do as part of my uh you know my my my due diligence to prove that i wasn't a villain was get all of my old pay slips right from jobs that i'd been doing like a decade ago oh my god yeah and i i didn't really keep them around because i don't know how you feel about old pay slips, but like, that didn't really spark joy.

No. I just thought the point that I was at, a bunch of pieces of paper that told me that I was poor. I don't want to keep them around the house. And so I had to like go to the bank and clear, I get five years or so worth of bank statements printed. And the lady at the bank, when I explained what I was getting them for, she was very kind. She goes, she goes, oh, what's all this for?

And I was like, yeah, I'm just trying to clear my robo debt, which is $20,000. We'd printed about two years worth at that point she goes, I'll stop charging you here. Oh, because you've got to pay for old bank statements, do you? Yeah, got to pay for the old bank statements. Oh, that bank was nicer to me than Centrelink. That's, that's quite extraordinary. Yeah, right. Oh, my God.

And did you ever have to, when you were receiving SendLink, did you ever have to work for the doll? Like, were you part of that dolder? I did the I did the schools, you know, where they teach you how to write resumes and interact with human beings. And did that work? Did that lead to Oh, they're awful.

They're awful. One of the classes that we sat in, the woman wrote on the board a phrase from Romeo and Julia and got everyone in the class, there's about 20 of us, to say it with a slightly different inflection to show that we understood nuance in language.

And these are all adults, aren't they? These are all adults. It's just condescending. Yep. Super condescending. Right. Teach us how to use language because we're too stupid to understand how to get employment. I think to be fair, that's what they do at the Centrelink Training Academy.

Like, it's your fault. It's your fault. It's your fault. Like they just, you know, mix it up to try and make you feel as guilty as possible. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to find the right inflection about, is it my fault? Or is it my fault?

Right, right. Because they're different, similar, but different, yeah. How bizarre, I mean, imagine going to, it's kind of a parody, going to remedial central ink class. And Romeo and Juliet is the thing that they teach you, like the piece where life is overwhelming and impossible and the two main characters, the namesakes end up, you know, dying at the end. Is that a great, a remedial class? A subtle clue as to what they want. Merchant of Venice and Robo Debt. can be the pounded flesh.

So now what's happening is you've actually channeled some of this experience and anger into comedy. You started actually doing comedy shows. And you've got one coming up in Adelaide and Melbourne Comedy Festival this year called The Wage Against the Machine. Tell us a bit about that. Yeah. So this is an anti-work comedy where I spill some of the tea about some of my old job.

and about Centrelink and about my Robo Dead experience. And, you know, I talk a little bit about using satire and social commentary to, you know, break those things down. And you said anti-work. What is the anti-work movement? Well, yeah, it's interesting that you should bring that up

because the anti-work movement, I think, is being misconstrued to, if anyone saw the recent Fox News article, They're being misconstrued as people who don't want to work as opposed to people who want. It depends on who you want. So there's a range of wants. Some people will. So the anti-work movement is this is the group of subreddit that's now got 1.6 million followers in the US.

Yeah. I think it's good to pin down exactly what it is because it sounds as though I can't join it just because I don't want to work with Charles, for instance. That wouldn't be legitimate. Well, I mean, you could classify not working with Charles. as better working conditions. That's true, actually. Yeah, and then you're all fine. You can jump on board because I think at the bottom end,

people just want better working conditions. And at the top end, people are asking for support like, you know, UBI, universal basic income. And so the thing is that this whole movement has sort of exploded out of basically nothing overnight in the US. It's become extremely popular, one of the most popular things on Reddit. Absolutely. And suddenly...

The US has done nothing to build this fervor of hatred of its minimum wage workers. It hasn't suppressed wages over time and kept people at, you know, poverty levels or below poverty levels. It's all overnight. It's definitely just started happening. It's not the inevitable culmination of decades of struggle and suffering. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore.

FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. The thing that gets me is that there are some countries where creatives can get paid to do stuff. And it just sort of occurs to me that rather than the kind of humiliating work

that will lead nowhere that work for the doctor, tends to involve. Like if someone wants to develop a comedy show or write a novel or do a bunch of paint, like surely that's something we could all say. That's actually a worthwhile thing to do. Because in terms of actually creating work and developing skills and doing, like this is a career for you now.

You're a stage performer. And in many ways, you know, thanks Centrelink for giving you the massive rage that you're pouring into this show. Well, yeah. I mean, there is definitely some countries that are way more supportive. Ireland recently, so this is a big ministerial portfolio. They're minister for tourism, culture, arts, sport, media, and Gaeletech,

which is like communities that speak gaily. Right. They've introduced a, like an artist's UBI that a certain amount of artists who will be able to apply for, but they have earmarked 25 million euros. to pay to artists to, you know, it's borne out of the coronavirus and COVID support, but they've put in a place some sort of method because they've recognised that art is quite important for their culture. You know, people really got on board with Riverdance for a while there,

and if they can bring that back. I mean, that's the first argument against it I've heard. So UBI is a universal basic income. Yeah, so this would be a... And so it's not like the dollar, it's sort of more money, isn't it? Well, I guess it depends on how much is introduced. So they're putting it at their minimum wage, which is €10.50 an hour, but with no set maximum. So they're still working out exactly how much they would pay.

But the common argument for UBIs would be you would pay a base level living wage. And if people needed more money, wanted to do more things, wanted to support themselves, then they could maybe get a part-time job, you know, someone like that. myself would go into the arts and use that money to support their artistic pursuits. And if someone just wanted, was happy with what they're receiving, was happy to watch videos and do YouTube, that's fine. Like, that's what they do. Yeah, and you know that you're going to have your rent paid and some level of food.

I mean, this is the thing, this was sort of three different things we're talking about. We're talking about the work for the Dole notion that there's mutual obligation, as they like to put it, as though they're sort of grumpy parents. the idea of funding for artists to do what they do but then also I mean the UBI as I understand it is just what you say that we just say that we're going to have a line no one in the whole society exists below this line we don't want anyone to live in poverty we can afford

to have a base level that then people can augment but I mean that's kind of civilised isn't it to make sure that no one extremely civilised I mean in your family if you can afford it no parent will let their kid not be able to buy food if they have the resources to stop that. And presumably in countries like Ireland and Australia, we actually do have that. Yeah, yeah.

And it's fascinating the way that the government feels it still has a moral right to police how people spend their money. Because I don't know what they've wasted more of over their time the last eight years. Like taxpayer money or our time to react to climate change. Like it's hard to really weigh them. those two things. There's been incredible amounts of wastage. I mean, car parks again. Probably quite high on the list. But no, I guess it shows what priorities are, isn't it?

I mean, either the priority is to try and punish people because there's a view that if you don't have a minimum level of effort, if you're not, you know, having a go to get a go, then that's not okay. Or just saying, you know what, people can do nothing if they want to, or develop things or whatever it is, it just, they're going to have a small amount of money. I mean, I think, I have a lot of sympathy for the second amount. And particularly, that's sort of what we did with the chase. That wasn't it, Charles? When we, we basically tried to scrap buying as little as possible for a few years

until we got paid a bit below minimum wage. No, I remember 1999, I earned $6,000. And that was doing basically babysitting and phone polling. and, like, no, the Chaser didn't buy anything, but it was sort of, we sort of, that's what we wanted to do. Yeah, and it ended up, I mean, some might argue that it's an argument against having something like a UBI, the Chaser comes out of it, but it is how things happen.

I mean, everyone that I know, I know a lot of people, for instance, who are visual artists, and the people who are able to make it, either somehow managed to sell their work for a lot of money early, which is very rare, or have, you know, people who can, find them a partner or a parents or something who can actually give them a couple of years of living at home or whatever. And it's not fair for people who don't have that opportunity to not be able to pursue that.

Because guess what? Some of them then sell their works for hundreds of millions of dollars down the track or whatever. Not even with artists necessarily. It's just people who potentially could find that they are skilled in other ways. Like maybe they can go back to uni or TAFE part-time and find that they're good at another skill. and then they might end up earning more money than they ever would have had they not had that support in the first place. Or not earning money.

Like, isn't the point that, you know, the goal doesn't have to be to earn lots of money in life? They might find that they like spending time with their family and have a really satisfying life. They might. Or they might become podcasters. No! We need more podcasts. But in all seriousness, I kind of think that's true.

We should question the notion of. Why does everybody have to work to exist when there's enough money in this society to go around, right? Like, Gina Reinhart and Clive Palmer can afford to pay a few people to watch YouTube in their pajamas. I think that's fine. So is this all in your show? Is this what wage against the machine is about? Some of this is touched on because obviously I need to pepper a few more laughs in there. You can't just preach at people.

Yeah, it's kind of strange because like even. I've got some numbers here. There are some sad numbers. Is this show going to have graphs? No, I know. I don't have any graphs. It's not a bad thing. I'll say it's done.

Oh, no, I've seen good graphs, but I just, I can't carry graphs around. I can't do graphs. Oh, our show has graphs, the one that we're doing at the fringe, which is called spin. It's on from the 8th till the 21st of March. Well, I would expect a show named spin to have some sort of, you know, presentation element. We have lots of pie charts that are actually designed by the Australians graphic designer, so keep an eye up to that. It's amazing how many of these interviews end up being a convoluted plug for Charles's show.

Well, I mean, it's only fair. This is also a convoluted plug for my show. No, but that's legit. That's legit. So your show is called Wage Against the Machine. You can find out all about it at Matt Harveystuff.com. or you can just go to the Adelaide Fringe website. I'm sure you can find it there.

It's playing in Adelaide from the 2nd to the 6th of March and then on to the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Yeah, yeah, from the 31st until the 22nd of April. First of March till the 13th of April. Yeah. Amazing. And your articles for the shot? What's it like we're writing for the shovel?

Are they better than us? Well, you guys haven't accepted any of my proposals. Yeah. Yeah, we're more discerning, I think. Good luck with the show, Matt. Thank you. I hope everyone not only laughs, but is convinced of the merits of a universal basic income.

I mean, if they take nothing else from the show, that would be a good start. I'm keen to talk about the time I broke a big roller coaster and saved a bunch of people's lives. Ooh, that's a hook. That's a hook. Wouldn't have mind hearing that in the past 20 minutes. All the best.

Our gear is from Road Microphones, and we are part of the ACAST Creator Network. We'll have another one of these tomorrow. See ya. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month.

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