Kylie Lang on Anika Wells’ spending and why things must change

Scrutiny over Anika Wells is deserved but also highlights why things must change quickly, argues Kylie Lang.

Anika Wells isn’t the first minister to board the taxpayer-funded gravy train and she won’t be the last unless the rules change.

The Brisbane-based Minister for Communications and Sport has been at pains to defend what can only be viewed by ordinary Australians as lavish spending, saying it falls within the guidelines.

Did employing some restraint and choosing moderation at a time when so many people are battling a cost of living crisis never cross her mind?

A $1750 bill for dinner and drinks in Paris, almost $100,000 on three flights to New York, three trips to Europe in a year – but the real doozy, family-related travel.

Flying your partner around the country to attend sporting events and taking your kids on a ski trip to Thredbo might technically fit within the parliamentary cost parameters but it does not pass the pub test.

Is Anika Wells hiding behind the rules? Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

This week Ms Wells received a degree of support – some predictable, some not – but I fail to see how giving your family junkets is an acceptable way to carry out your job, especially when that job is designed to serve the people of Australia.

Former Queensland Labor minister Robert Schwarten on Monday slammed the pub test as a crock. Seems it didn’t fit his narrative this time.

Schwarten said “spite and envy” were behind the criticism of Ms Wells’ spending. I kid you not.

He went on to argue that comparatively few people put their hands up for politics – “so if the wages, perks and all the freebies that the pub mob say are true it would follow that the ballot papers would be 50-metres long”.

Wrong.

As Ted O’Brien, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, tells me in the High Steaks column in tomorrow’s Sunday Mail: “There are a lot of easier jobs that have a lot more money.”

Certainly, corporate figureheads earn more, as do many “influencers” and house flippers.

At issue here is whether or not MPs are gaming the system.

“There are a lot of easier jobs that have a lot more money”, Member for Fairfax Ted O'Brien says.

I was surprised to read Madeline Simmonds’ take on things.

The wife of former federal Liberal MP Julian Simmonds played the gender card.

Mrs Simmonds wrote in this newspaper on Tuesday that she was not a Labor voter but felt compelled to speak out, “mother to mother”.

“To pretend that women in politics should operate without support, without flexibility, without the ability to stay connected to their families despite punishing demands, is to ignore the structural barriers that keep women out of public life in the first place,” she said.

“When we leap to condemn a mother for the logistical realities of her job, what message does that send to the next generation of potential female leaders?

“It says, you may serve your country, but only if you pretend you don’t have children.

“We are not assessing conduct. We are assessing motherhood.”

Wrong again.

What we are doing is calling out the extravagant use of taxpayer dollars, whether or not politicians are parents.

Ms Wells also failed to declare on time gifted concert tickets, and had a Comcar driver wait seven hours – costing us $1000 – while she watched the Australian Open tennis.

These are judgement calls made not because she’s a mother.

In 2020 Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke repaid $8600 for a 2012 family trip to Uluru, admitting it was “beyond community expectations”.

Labor front bencher Patrick Gorman has racked up $113,000 in family-related travel costs and Coalition MP Andrew Willcox $124,000.

Meanwhile, a growing number of families are wondering how they’ll put food on the table for Christmas – or at any time of the year.

Ms Wells, who has referred her own spending for independent review, said she accepted the dollar figures quoted prompted “a gut reaction in people”.

“I agree with everybody that parliamentarians’ entitlements should be scrutinised,” she said on Wednesday.

Well, let’s get on with it.

The guidelines – which some politicians deliberately avoid maxing out because they know it’s a bad look – were brought in 15 years ago.

Much has changed since 2010 – most notably our economy and living standards.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese must tighten the rules accordingly because hard-working Aussies are sick of being taken for mugs.

Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of The Courier-Mail
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Originally published as Kylie Lang on Anika Wells’ spending and why things must change