Bolt: Wells’ car-crash interview another fail for Albanese govt

A senior Labor ministers’ car-crash TV interview over her lavish taxpayer-funded international jaunts isn’t the only problem facing the Albanese government this week.

Add Anika Wells’ car-crash interview on Sky News on Sunday to the refusal of Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher to apologise for repeating lies about two innocent women.

What does it add up to? A stench of arrogance from this Albanese Government.

Let’s start with Communications and Sports Minister Wells, who was confronted on Sky News by host Andrew Clennell over no fewer than four examples of socking taxpayers for extraordinary bills.

No wonder viewers could hear a crow laugh all through her ridiculous answers as she did her live cross from outdoors.

Example one: Wells spending nearly $1000 of your money on a dinner in Paris for herself, a staffer, a public servant and our ambassador to France.

Wells’ excuse: this was an “orientation meeting” on one of her three trips to France in just one year to attend the Rugby World Cup, Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

Er, this “orientation meeting” of these four Australians had to be at a fancy restaurant, and funded by taxpayers going through a cost-of-living crisis back home?

Minister for Communications Anika Wells made a fool of herself on Sky News. Picture: Martin Ollman

Example two: Wells charging taxpayers to bring her husband and two of her children on a weekend at Thredbo, where they went skiing.

Wells’ excuse: she was there for work, at the Paralympics Australia Adaptive Festival for the disabled, and the rules allow politicians taxpayer-funded family reunions.

Besides: this festival “was only made possible by the injection of funding, the doubling of funding that the prime minister has put into Paralympic sport”.

Oh, right! So because prime minister spends OUR money on Paralympic sport, Wells feels entitled to spend OUR money on HER family’s weekend in the snow?

Example three: Wells charging taxpayers $3000 for a trip to Adelaide, where she attended the weekend birthday party of a friend, Connie Blefari.

Wells’ excuse: “It was work travel. I had four official engagements.”

Really? One of those engagements was a meeting with Blefari’s husband, who is also the state Health Minister. Another was with the chief of staff of federal Trade Minister Don Farrell, who – with all due respect – seems an unusual choice for Wells’ attention. A third was some new Labor backbencher.

Clennell, wise to politicians stacking private trips with “official” functions to justify slugging taxpayers, asked Wells whether she’d known about her friend’s birthday party before she scheduled those “official engagements”.

Senator Penny Wong has refused to admit she’s ruined the careers of two women. Picture: Martin Ollman

Wells stood with mouth open for four seconds before stuttering: “I don’t … I can check the timeline for you, but, Andrew, this was a work trip.” The crow kept laughing.

And the fourth example: Wells spending $100,000 on airfares for herself and two staff to New York to tell the United Nations about her ban this week on social media for children, and to hold a $70,000 function.

Wells’ excuse: “I absolutely understand that any ordinary Australian would look at those black and white figures and have a gut reaction …(But) we’re talking about lives being lost.”

Really? Wells spending all that money on a trip to New York when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Energy Minister Chris Bowen were all already there has stopped children from killing themselves?

If only Wells’ high-handedness was a one-off. Well, a two-off, since I’ve just mentioned Chris Bowen, yet to say sorry for breaking his ridiculous promise that his bungled green energy schemes would cut your electricity bills by $275.

But don’t forget Wong and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who last week kept refusing to admit they’d ruined the careers of two women – former Liberal defence minister Linda Reynolds and her then chief of staff, Fiona Brown – by repeating a devastating lie, that they’d covered up the rape of a Reynold’s staffer, Brittany Higgins.

Two judges have since independently concluded that Higgins’ claims that Reynolds and Brown treated her badly and even tried to stop her going to police were completely false.

But Wong and Gallagher had repeated Higgins’ lie to destroy the Morrison Government, and the new Albanese Government then paid Higgins a suspiciously generous $2.4 million in compensation in part for that make-believe cover-up and bad treatment.

Yet Wong last week refused to even admit two judges had nailed the lie, and refused to apologise for repeating it. Gallagher just declared she’d “not be answering any further questions” about her role in using this inherently improbable lie to smear Reynolds and Brown, who’s said she contemplated killing herself over it.

And now there’s Wells, too. Crows may laugh at all this arrogance, but voters should be shocked.