The Chaser Report - The Right To Disconnect (From Everything) | Andrew Hansen

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Andrew Hansen joins Dom Knight in today's episode of The Chaser Report, despite being contacted by Dom outside of work hours. Thankfully for Andrew, there's a brand-new law in place to protect him from ever having to answer pesky work calls when he's off the clock. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Andrew Hanson back on deck once more. Andrew, I'm so sorry. I texted you about doing this over the weekend. I did not respect your right to disconnect now shrined in Australian law. And I'm truly sorry for the intrusion. Dommy, sorry is not good enough anymore.

That's not going to cut it. You're going to have to pay $18,000 roughly. I gather that's the maximum penalty for daring to send an email outside of work out. Yes, fortunately, I'm not your boss in any meaningful way at all. It depends how we define this podcast relationship, I suppose. That's true. I do. I quite like it to have 18 grand from your dummy.

I think it's Charles's fault. Can we just agree that Mr. I'm doing a show Ivory Edinburgh is the way? I think he has both of us. Yeah, yeah, I know, what a pain. Like, just because he happens to have some hit show on his hands briefly. I mean, you and I are stuck in Australia doing the podcast without his efforts. He's doing wankanomics. And I mean, from this distance, wanker is the word I'd use, Andrew, frankly.

Oh, well, he finally had the honesty to name the show after himself. I mean, I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for this. No, we shouldn't. We've got to be very careful contacting Charles because he's in a different time. Oh. So what do you do? You know, it's very hard now for a boss.

I mean, it's always hard for a boss. but now even harder. I feel very sorry for the bosses. Well, let's explain how these rules work after these wonderful ads. And listen to this on your own time, by the way. Pick a time for these ads that suits your working patterns, whatever they may be. Well, yes, yes. Otherwise, we'll have to pay you $18,000.

Okay, so the whole idea is that it started today as we're recording 26th of August. The idea being you don't have to take calls and emails after hours. you can be reasonably refuse to be contacted. What does that actually mean? I mean, if your boss rings you offering an extra shift, you just ignore them. That doesn't seem sensible. I couldn't afford to do that. You're at a significant disadvantage there, isn't it?

What if they've rung you with fantastic news about, you know, like, we're going to offer you a pay rise, but only if you accept it in the next five minutes. Yes. And then you've missed out if you don't take the call at 6 a.m. I love the idea that I would ever have enough job security in any media role where I could afford not to take any contact from a boss at any time. I know, it is funny, in our line of work, my God, if my phone rings, I'm so grateful. I dive on it in the middle of the night whenever it is.

I mean, it's always, it's usually a scammer. It's never somebody offering work. That's right. But still, you know, in our business, even a scammer is to be thanked. So true. So this is the thing. So it's a new right that you have. But it's only the kind of right you can exercise if you've got one of those sort of permanent

jobs where it's genuinely hard to say. you. And I think Tony Burke, uh, was the workplace relationship minister who was spruiking this should be on that. Uh, Sally McManus from the ACTU says it's a really awesome new right that your employer can't harass you after work. You can just not respond. So if you work, you should get paid. I'd rather the other way around. I'd rather they can connect me whenever they want, but the clock starts ticking. It's a four hour shift whenever I get an email. Oh, that could you clock on when the email arrives? I like that idea. I like that idea. What if it's a, what if it's a but call though? I mean, the poor, the poor, the poor,

Again, the poor boss, what if he just accidentally phoned you at 10pm? He's up for 18 grand. Charles did that yesterday, you know. He actually butt dialed me from Edinburgh, wherever he is, at 7pm. The invoice, I've generated the invoice already. Yeah, absolutely. He's not allowed to do this. I mean, it's very French, isn't it, this whole thing?

My understanding is it all sort of started with the French, doesn't it? I mean, any, anything to do, taking it easy and taking long lunch, you know, anything to do with making your life nice, usually the French are the first into it, aren't it? Does that mean we can strike and get paid to strike? That's the la greve. That's what I've always wanted. I've wanted to get paid to strike. A grave.

Well, that's what I found. When I had a trip to France and nothing seemed to work properly. That's right. Things were always closed or not running or whatever. And I'd always look around mystified and then the person behind the desk would always say, It's an grave. Yes. And nod.

And you'd go, oh, it's a greve. Of course it is. That's the reason why none. Nothing in France moves or happens or works at all. I'd like to see a lot more of that here. Yeah, I don't think it's a problem if things don't work, as long as people are able to chill out on the employer's dime. I mean, let's rebalance that.

Do you remember that one wonderful day? It must have been Year 11 or Year 12 for me. It was towards the end of school when there was a general strike in New South Wales. I think it's never been one before or since, but everything was closed. Like the trains didn't run. I remember walking to school across the Harbour Bridge. I think I had to go to school because I went to a private school, so our teachers weren't on strike. But everything was closed.

It was fantastic. Yeah, you should be like that every day. Yes. Every single day. Imagine how wonderful the world would be here. Everything was shut every day, just all day. We'd be so chilled and relaxed. It'd be beautiful, I thought.

Yeah, I'm just thinking of all the years I was a government employee doing a radio show every day. I turned up and did a new radio show every day. I could have been paid not to be there. They would have had to play music or something. Yeah. Well, exactly. Or at the very least, just do what you like. I'd like to see, you know, more workplace freedom now that we've got the right to disconnect, wouldn't you, Domi?

And one of them should be that you're not required to perform at all. Now, I mean, there are some sources I've found online, and I don't know whether I can believe them, but there are definitely some articles I've spotted which say that this is the case in Italy. Oh, really? You cannot be fired for underperformance in Italy. It doesn't matter how bad. I haven't fact checked this, but I think it's a good idea anyway. It doesn't matter how badly you do the job, you just can't be fired.

Brilliant. Brilliant. I love that. And I love that for me. I love that no performance challenges at all. And the other thing is if they start asking questions about performance, I want stress leave. Now, this is the thing. I've never had a job where you get stress leave in my entire life.

And I'm sure many people are genuinely stressed and I don't want to minimize anyone's mental health challenges if that's real. But I would find it stressful. Someone asking me questions about my performance and whether I was doing my job. I find that so stressed. I would need to go off for months, I think, on stress leave, Andrew. Surely that's my right, isn't it? At the very low, I mean, even if you're called into a performance review, that alone,

you should be able to take five years off just from being told you have to attend. You know, I think, absolutely with you. In fact, having the job is stressful. I mean, having any job is so stressful, you should immediately, on your first day, be given five years of stress leave just for having a job. I think having to open your boss's email is inherently stressful. It might say anything. And I just saw a job, I just saw an email from a boss of a job that I occasionally do earlier today come through.

And it was saying that people had gone on leave and gone back. It was stressful. I'm not rocked it on today. You're coping. Just take a break, Dommy. Just take some deep breaths. Because that's awful to have to receive an email, especially if it's outside work hours. Totally unacceptable.

It's unacceptable. But also just, why do I need to get an email? Why can't my thoughts? Why can't the tiniest thoughts about work also be compensated with either. payment or stress leave or both. Because if I wake up and with the night, worry that I'm going to lose my job, which happens all the time,

you know, out of underperformance, I should be compensated for that insomnia. Yes, absolutely. It's your boss's fault if you're not sleeping, really. I completely agree. I completely agree, Tommy. You know, I was doing some work for a local council last year, and they got rid of my job too.

Did they? Yes, and I had a least budget problem. And I said, oh, well, is, can you know, Is there a reason? Is there a real reason? And they were struggling. I were obviously struggling to come up with a reason. Yeah.

So they said, oh, just productivity. You need to be more productive. Right. And that was, I wasn't in what way. Are there any go? But they were totally stumped. Couldn't give me an answer. But I think, you know, I think I should be entitled to an income from that job for the rest of my life.

Back pay. How are you not getting paid as we speak? Well, exactly. from that job, they've stressed you out. And probably for my children's lives, too, I think. I feel it would be fair enough if that local council paid for the rest of my kids' lives. And maybe all my descendants in perpetuity, I think. I like that idea.

I like that. Because if you're stressed, you take it out on your children and they'll take it out on their children. And these things just spiral. And it's the employer's fault. I couldn't agree more. It all goes back to the employer, you know. I think in a thousand years' time, your descendants should still be able to be living off some local council job, I reckon.

I had a corporate job for six months in 2001 when I left university for about six months. I took leave from it on multiple occasions to do the first sort of chase of projects we did on TV. And I cannot believe, I'm not still drawing an income from that. That's outrageous. What was I thinking? What, where do they think they are in China? This is Australia. We have rights.

Outrageous. This is outrageous, don't mean, ring them up. We should ring them up, like during working hours, of course. Yes. And demand some income, I think, for the last 25 years. Yep, that's a very good idea. And my time in just preparing the invoice as well. Oh, well, yeah, you've got an invoice for the invoice.

You do. Of course you do. An invoice processing invoice, that's right. Lawyers do, don't they do do that way. Well, let me run you through, Domney, some interesting workplace laws from around the world. And let's just pull them apart. Okay, just before we do, quick smoker, I'm entitled to a smoker. I don't smoke, but I'll need a smoker.

Oh, I beg your pardon. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. Perhaps you'd like to have a bit of nap time. Is that something you'd love? I'd love a nap time. Well, if you work in Japan, for example, then there is an expectation now that your workplace ought to give you a little area for hirune, which is napping, because you know, you're expected to work such long hours.

jobs in Japan. Yeah. But it's now considered rather reasonable for the workplace to give you a little spot where you can just have a kip. Now, you might recall I used to do this on our live tour and, in fact, in the office. I was sometimes nap under the desk. I was going to say, you were a very Japanese-style worker dummy on making a lot of chaser shows. Yeah, yeah.

Often having a little nap under the desk. That was particularly when I was trying to do working on television and evening radio. I would often have a nap at about sort of three or four in the afternoon. Yeah, it's a bit of hiruner. Occasionally, workers would gather around me and poke me to see how deeply I was sleeping. It was very...

It was like a dog. You know, it was like the dog goes into sleep under the dining table and you sort of, you know... Yes, releasing terrible farts in mid-dream. That was my right. Yeah, yeah.

Well, it was a very Japanese style of working, I love that rather than going, well, we should probably, like, you know, have shorter hours that don't completely exhaust people. They've gone, no, a right to nap. So, have a little 20-minute nap and then get back to the rest of your 16-hour shift. Followed by drinks, mandatory drinks with the boss.

Yeah, much better that they nap at work. There's a very funny note about this Japanese thing too. There's another thing that they do, which is, it's called Inemuri, which is just sleeping in public. Oh, I've seen this. You know, you've been to Japan and Donnie. You do see people dozing off all the time on the train and that sort of thing because they're so exhausted from over sleeping. But I have read, and I don't know if you agree with this, that it's a, a little bit unacceptable in a Japanese workplace to, you know,

fall asleep under the desk, Dom style. You are expected that if you drift off at your desk, you're expected to at least remain upright. Oh, well, this is interesting because I've seen, I've seen on trains, for instance, the last train, a lot of people will sleep standing up or sitting up or whatever it might be. You're standing up. My friend and I used to take photos in exchange them with the most.

unusual photos. This is quite impossible, particularly in peak our trains in Japan, because it's so crowded that if you do fall asleep standing up, there's so many bodies around you, you know, Shinjuku station or something. Oh, you just lean on them. You've got a comfortable, you know, cushion in every direction. Yeah, you can just lean on that. It's a great idea.

Well, why not have this on Aussie physical workplaces? You know, I mean, if you're a bit tired on a construction site here in Australia, I think you should be allowed to sleep, provided you remain safely standing up. Yes, that's right. You know, obviously, you can't force. sleep in the middle of a building site, but if you were standing up, and a couple of your co-workers either side in high-vis, maybe, just support, you know, so you could lean on them. Strap you in or to something?

It would be good. Actually, what they could do is they could, you know, use some sort of carabiner arrangement or something to just strap you to a girder upright and have a little nap. A little nap there dangling above the air. You're in a fall harness. You know, you could have drift off in a fall harness. I know you know that you actually have a heart attack if you dangle in a full harness for longer than about three minutes.

But you could get a shortener, you know, you know, a quick bit of show sign. Power nap. I didn't know that. Can you really get a heart attack in three minutes in a fall harness? Yeah, yeah. Look, I did a working at heights course, which I actually undertook as part of that council job where they got rid of me. And valuable training.

You know, I was working in art galleries. And in art galleries, you've got to get really high to fiddle with artworks and stuff. So I did this working at heights course. I went to university to learn how to work at two, above two. I did a university height course. Wow. I've got my work at heights degree. That's wonderful. You can work on the Harbour Institute. Oh, it's fantastic. Oh, look, I could build it. I could fix Australia's housing crisis now. You should. Thanks to my, yeah, it was a tough course. It took a whole day. It was exhausting. Wow. But I did learn there that, yeah, you know, if you're strapped into one of those sort of harnesses and you fall, the downside of the harness is that, yeah, you can only really survive dangling in it for about three minutes or so, maybe five. before you will have a massive heart attack.

So they have to get you down within that period. They've got to get you down straight away, yes, because the harness, the problem with them is they squash you. Yes, I can see how they would. But that's stressful just even hearing about that. I would have thought you should have taken up the next week off to recover. Oh, sorry, yes, and apologies to you, if you're listening. Take some stress leave listening to that because that's very stressful.

Yes, you can invoice us podcast at chaser.com.com for your time and we'll pass those bills on to Charles. along with the cost of preparing the invoice. Yes, of course. That would be great. In Belgium, Dwayne, let's move to Belgium. In Belgium, if you fancy taking a break from work, say, you go on a holiday, maybe to neighbouring France for some more downtime, you know, to enjoy the strikes or wherever you want

to go, according to one blog, again, I haven't fact-checked this, but I think it's a brilliant idea. I hope it's true. Employers have to give you a thing called a career break, which is. a bit of time off to travel, and they have to pay you an allowance while you're off and guarantee that you can resume your job when you get back. I love that. Love that for me.

Yeah. Why don't we do that here? I mean, if you work at Maccas in Australia, that should be a ticket to travel the world. Yes, for a career break. I think that's a wonderful idea. And really, maybe I should argue to my employer from 2001. That's what I've been doing since. My job's still there.

Yeah, like in Belgium. That's very good. You pay you for the privilege of traveling around. Wonderful. So there's another one that we should add, I think. Yeah, there's some wonderful. And here's another one that I like here is in the Philippines. If you work for 12 months of the year, they have to pay you for a 13th month.

Oh, wow. That's good. Why stop there? Why is it only one more month? That's my problem with it. Yes, it does seem a bit limited. Yeah, why not pay for 100 months? So you just get a buy, if you manage to stay in a job for 12 months, you get a free month.

That's really aiming the bar nice and low, isn't it? You've actually survived a full year. Well, and, you know, and people's lifestyles, you know, we all know that everybody who lives in the Philippines lives a life of absolute luxury leave. Oh, famously so, famous. Yeah, you can see where, you know, where that 13th month goes. It's probably one in a million that makes it to that 13th month.

Very, very nice. What, look, I think there's a very, very good rules, Andrew, any more, anything else you can pitch the government? Well, it's just got me thinking of some rights that we should demand extra here in Australia. And the first one I'd like, I think, is for anybody who works in one of those cubicles in an open plan office, I feel that that's kind of, it sits side by side really with the housing crisis. Because working in a cubicle, there's a bit like renting, isn't it? You know, the employer kind of owns your workspace. And I think, you know, like we want better renter's rights in Australia, I feel they should apply to cubicle work.

Like we should be allowed to hammer in a nail, for example, to hang up a picture. Or we should be allowed to have pets. I'd like to have, you know, we should be able to have a pet dog. Paint the walls, get pets. Yeah. Yeah, put it in as TV. Like hang a flat screen TV, I think it'd be good. TV, yes, smoking.

Loud music, I think. You should be allowed to play whatever music you want. Yes, yes, and entertain. You should be able to have parties. Yeah, well, why live the guest? You should have been able to dinner party in your office cubicle. Absolutely. Yeah.

The openness of them I don't like either, Donnie. I mean, they call them cubicles, but there's nothing cube-like about them, really. They're completely open. At best, you've got maybe two. sides of the cube built. And even then, they're quite low. You can see over them. They don't go floor to ceiling.

So I think it would be better if you had the right to build your own walls around your cubicle. Yes. So you're completely enclosed. And then put in a bunk bed for your little hyunae, a little nap. Yes. I mean, why is the Australian government not onto this? I mean, this pathetic right to disconnect. How feeble is that?

We need better right. We need much more, much more done. We do. And in fact, parliamentarians, well, don't they get, basically, they get very long pensions and things, don't they? I know it's been scarred down a little bit with Martin Latham, but basically, once we disconnect them and kick them out, don't they get a nice little financial parachute? I think they do still, don't they?

Well, I think they do, which I find very odd. They usually justify that in the rhetoric by saying, oh, because we served, we served the public as if they generously decided to give up their entire life, you know, for the benefit of the rest of us. Oh, how nice of you? Oh, it's not because you wanted to do. the job. And they say,

you decided to do that extremely well-paid job. Oh, you were serving the rest of us, so we should fund the rest of your life. Thank you for your service. And of course, they say that it's very insecure

because every three years they can lose their job, which just goes, these people don't know the gig economy at all. They don't know it. Try running a business, mate. Try getting more than a week's continuous work in the arts,

doing anything ever. Yeah, it's the public service mindset that is, I think. It's, oh, you, I mean, you know, three, you know, three years and they get paid enough for a lifetime during those three years. So perhaps, look, I think you're right, Domney, maybe less rights for the politicians is a good thing.

Less travel. More rights for cubicle workers. I love it. I love it. You know what? I think I'm in overtime now on this episode. Well, God. Yes, yes.

That's a huge problem in most countries, I think, Domney. We'd better, we'd better stop or otherwise the Chase is going to have to pay you and me an absolute fortune. We'd better let you go. I mean, look, if you've enjoyed these thoughts, why don't you get in touch with your own ideas about, you know, extra workers' rights? It might be the right to bring the cheapest, nastiest office snacks for somebody's birthday. It might be the right to laugh in your boss's face at anything they say without repercussions. Whatever it is, what's the email address on? Podcast at chaser.com.

And we'll submit them to fair work, ombudsman. Very, very good. Gehry is from Road, we're part of the O'Connor Class Network, and thank you for not disconnecting thus far. I appreciate it. Yeah, sorry if we caught you outside work hours. Don't tell anybody.