‘Had a gutful’: Anika Wells’ 2021 words return to condemn an entire political class
Almost five years to the day, that interview, those words, have circled back in a leisurely fashion to bite her fair and square on the behind.
Karma sometimes takes a while to warm up but, sheesh, when it does, keep your knees soft and brace for impact.
I don’t know about you but I’ve had a gutful of the Morrison government treating taxpayer money like their own looting rorting piggybank. Scandal after scandal and they have learned nothing.
— Anika Wells MP (@AnikaWells) December 17, 2021
On @NewsTalk4BC with @scottemerson tonight. #auspolpic.twitter.com/Z4WwoNcKsN
The spending scandal started with the offensively extravagant trip to the UN by Wells, now the Communications and Sport Minister, but has spread and entangled the entire Albanese government, former Labor senator turned independent Fatima Payman, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young and others. They are spending our money like drunk lotto winners and can’t seem to understand the reasons for or the severity of the backlash.
It is so very simple. First, it’s not just the original sin, it’s their dismissive, disdainful response to being caught with their hands deep inside the cookie jar when all Australians are tightening their belts. It’s the lack of judgment. It’s the disconnect. It’s their champagne (socialist) tastes funded by Australian workers who at best are having a glass of chateau cardboard. They have no idea why we’re slamming our collective fists on the kitchen table in anger.
So let me help. I’d like to offer some dispatches from reality. Hell, it’s for every other member of parliament who right now is glistening with a nervous sweat. (I bet every newsroom in the country is working overtime on this, more power to them.) Let’s call this a letter from the real world where spending $100k on airfares isn’t just unthinkable, it’s utterly, morally offensive.
It started with the revelations that $100,000 was spent on airfares for Wells and two staff members to go to New York to deliver a speech that took less time than the average person needs to use the bathroom.
Let’s consider what $100k can do when put to good use.
For $100k, you can put two teenagers through high school at a very nice co-ed private Catholic school on Sydney’s lower north shore. Two years’ worth of school fees for two kids.
That $100,000 won’t be enough for a deposit on a house within 10km of Sydney but it might get you into a small unit or an apartment. It’s a deposit on a house in some other capital cities.
One hundred grand won’t cover the cost of lifesaving medical treatment for myriad conditions not covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
A cursory piece of research took me to the terrible story of a Perth toddler who just last week lost her battle with a rare disease, the treatment for which was not available in Australia. Her family had about $100,000 of the $3m needed for treatment, which was available in the US. A family fund-raised to save their child while our government blew $100k on airfares.
The point I’m making is simple. There is a lot $100k can or should be spent on. Flying three public servants (yes, Minister, at the end of the day you are just a senior public servant) to New York is not one of them.
On the other end of the spectrum, while financially less offensive, morally no less so, Wells (in one example) kept a driver on standby all day while she hung about at the tennis. I accept the minister needs a driver. I do not accept that one can’t be booked to come back later. A lazy thousand bucks. What does that get you these days?
A thousand dollars can almost feed a family of four for a month (side note, the cost of basic household groceries has risen by 11 per cent in the past 12 months.).
A thousand dollars will pay for four nights of safe accommodation for a woman fleeing domestic violence with her kids.
A thousand dollars is the weekly take-home pay for many Australians.
A thousand bucks won’t cover the cost of a breast MRI. How do I know? I’ve needed two. It is the most accurate diagnostic tool available but not covered by Medicare or private health insurance. A thousand bucks doesn’t cover it. But sure, minister, you keep the meter running while you watch the tennis.
It’s obscene and it is indefensible. I use these examples to bring perspective to all those who have tried to diminish. That everyone within government ranks, from the Prime Minister south, seems shocked by the ferocity of this backlash against their largesse says everything you need to know. Blindness, wilful or otherwise, to the world inhabited by the people they are supposed to be serving. To the cost of things. The value of things. What it takes to get ahead. The value of a buck.
Think about it. Do you honestly think anyone in government would spend $100k of their own money on airfares? Would spend a grand of their own hard-earned keeping a driver on call all day? They’d be taking an Uber pool car! They spend the money because they can, and because it’s not theirs, and for that reason it has no value. It may as well be Monopoly money.
Before anyone starts talking about previous governments and their record, doing so is nothing but an unintentional own goal. Why? Because the Albanese government came to office promising transparency, fiscal restraint and government done differently. It had the choice and the opportunity to be different, to lead and to reform. It hasn’t. It seemingly has lost sight of who it works for, whose money pays for things and what it is there to do. An aggravating factor in this case is Australia’s economic climate, and the reality of financial strain hitting businesses and homes.
Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell’s lunar-length escapades. Hanson-Young charging the taxpayer 78 times for flights for her lobbyist husband.
Millions of Australians juggle work travel, shift work and time with their kids and spouses. This is entitlement on speed. Saying that it’s in compliance with parliamentary guidelines is not a defence, it’s an indication of poor judgment. Just because technically you can do something, it by no means dictates that it’s morally OK.
Playing the gender card in defence of Wells, as the Prime Minister did late this week, is not a defence, it is an insult to every woman on Earth. Her spendathon has got nothing to do with making it easier for women to enter political life. Trying to frame that as an excuse is a desperate act by a government without answers, because there are none.
Last I saw was the Prime Minister ducking responsibility to reform the travel perks afforded members of parliament, saying that it’s not his space to influence. That sounds a lot like “I don’t hold a hose”.
I’ve been in business for more than two decades, as many of you know. I know the value of a buck and I know how much sweat goes into making one. I know how to run a profit and loss statement and keep a budget tight. I know what value looks like and what taking the piss looks like. This is the latter.
Let’s go back one last time to 2021, when Wells told talkback radio listeners that the Coalition government “has learned nothing about waste, or corruption or rorting”.
It’s said that by our own words we’re justified and by our own words we’re condemned. How very true.
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In December 2021 Anika Wells went on Brisbane talkback radio to put a blowtorch to the Morrison government for “treating taxpayer money like their own looting rorting piggy bank”, as she wrote in a post on X, sharing a link to the interview. Her words back then dripped with the noble indignation of an MP in opposition. Wells told her audience she had “had a gutful”.