Robodebt victim Matthew Thompson tells Royal Commission scheme took years off his life

A Tasmanian photojournalist hounded by Centrelink to repay $11,000 it illegally claimed he owed has described how the controversial robodebt scheme took years off his life.

A Tasmanian photojournalist hounded by Centrelink to repay $11,000 they illegally claimed he owed has described how the controversial robodebt scheme took years off his life, contributed to a heart attack and made him lose faith in the system.

Matthew Thompson, 50, of Snug in Tasmania, also told a Royal Commission into Robodebt he had been spurred to come forward after watching former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, in his role as social services minister, give evidence at the inquiry.

“I really struggle with the way politicians talk about people like me who access income support,” he said.

“I (was made) to feel like a welfare cheat … hearing what politicians say about the issue, it makes me sad and sick.”

The Brisbane-based inquiry, helmed by Commissioner Catherine Holmes AC SC, is working to establish how the illegal program came to be and kept going despite numerous red flags suggesting it was unlawful.

Matthew Thompson speaking during the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

The unlawful Centrelink debt recovery scheme ran from 2015 to November 2019, illegally garnished $720m from 380,000 victims, and culminated with a $1.8bn settlement to hundreds of thousands of victims.

Mr Thompson, who has struggled with mental-ill health all his life and is now diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder, said he had trouble holding down full-time work so accessed critical social services payments that allowed him to live.

In 2018 Centrelink sent him two debt notices, on the same day, totalling more than $11,000 after sending him a discrepancy notice in 2017.

At the time Mr Thompson was working as a casual photographer at Hobart’s The Mercury newspaper — a publication within the News Corp Australia stable alongside The Courier-Mail¬.

He asked Centrelink for a review of his debt and unlike many other victims of robodebt had access, by means of working for a big corporation, to pay slips dating back years on file.

Mr Thompson, grappling with an $11,000 debt looming over him, described being sent out to photograph a single mother who had also been hit with a robodebt notice.

“I remember driving home after meeting with this woman and being in tears,” he said.

In 2019 he went to a Centrelink office in Hobart to provide them more pay slips, but none of the paperwork appeared to have been forwarded on.

One of his debts was “zeroed” in 2020, with the other debt reduced to $1100 but not wiped — for reasons not disclosed to Mr Thompson.

“The Robodebt scheme has had a lasting affect on me … as it has on many other people,” Mr Thompson said.

“It really messed me up and I felt that it has taken years off my life, I also think it has contributed to a heart attack I experienced and set me back financially and made my mental health worse.”

Mr Thompson, slamming a long-list of former Coalition ministers who headed up the departments during the life of the scheme, said it seemed to him as though “powerful people are always able to take advantage of vulnerable people as the gap between rich and poorer increases still”.

“No matter how many royal commissions that we have, that always seems to be the case and I hope this royal commission can change that,” he said.

Commissioner Holmes, in response, said she didn’t think she could promise him that.

“But we will do what we can,” she said.

The Royal Commission into Robodebt will sit until March 10.