Anthony Albanese defends Minister Anika Wells’ $100k New York flights, Paris meal expenses and family ski trip
Anthony Albanese has backed Communications Minister Anika Wells, after she defended expenses incurred during multiple overseas and domestic trips where she took her family skiing and attended a friend’s birthday.
Anthony Albanese says his office approved nearly $100,000 worth of flights for Anika Wells and two staff to attend the United Nations General Assembly in September this year.
The Prime Minister defended the travel expenses incurred by the under-fire minister ahead of the launch of Australia’s world-first under-16s social media ban on Wednesday.
This includes reports she used her travel entitlements to attend a friend’s birthday party in Adelaide while visiting the city for official meetings.
The Daily Telegraph revealed Ms Wells, who is also Sports Minister, billed taxpayers $120,000 for three trips to Paris in a 12-month span, which also included a $600 bill for a lavish dinner and ‘plat dessert’ lunch during the Paris Olympics.
On Sunday Ms Wells was also reported to have used her family reunion allowance on accommodation and flights, totalling to about $3000, so her husband and children could join her at a Thredbo ski resort during meetings with Paralympics Australia in June.
Mr Albanese confirmed on Sunday that his office approved Ms Wells’s flights to New York. While she was supposed to travel with Mr Albanese on his private jet, she was delayed due to the fatal Optus outage.
“We spoke on the Friday night, we spoke on the Saturday morning before I departed and made the decision that Minister Wells would stay,” he said.
“We did it as a government, we made calls.”
He also said Ms Wells’ attendance was crucial in securing meetings with world leaders, and getting “buy-in” from other governments.
“It has helped that we have others in our corner now, rather than the potential which was there for us to be isolated by these big tech companies, who have a lot of power and influence,” he said.
Speaking about the Thredbo weekend trip, Mr Albanese said it was “within guidelines”.
While Ms Wells has acknowledged the cost of her New York flights, she said “You’ll appreciate this isn’t me on Webjet”.
“I absolutely understand that any ordinary Australian would look those black and white figures and have a gut reaction,” she said.
She also said that her appearance in New York created global momentum and support for the ban.
“I absolutely understand that parliamentarians travel entitlements should be scrutinised … but for me, the policy imperative, the life-changing work that we are trying to do and that we are trying to take around the world … it really was important, and I stand by it.”
Grilled over the expenses incurred on the Paris trip, and whether she would consider repaying the funds, she said: “I work really hard. I’m grateful for the opportunity to do that.
“I’m really passionate about the things that I get to do in this in this job, and I’ll continue to follow the rules and follow the guidelines, as I have in every single instance that you’ve outlined this morning,” she added.
Asked about the Thredbo trip, she maintained all her spending was within the government guidelines and said Labor had committed $2m in funding to the Adaptive Festival, to encourage people with disabilities to ski.
Ms Wells acknowledged however that her family went skiing, but said she was “there to work,” and “did work across the weekend”.
“You can see all the official engagements that I had separate to that I used my family reunion entitlement within the guidelines, as every parliamentarian can do,” she said.
Coalition finance spokesman James Paterson criticised the spending while households are struggling to pay their electricity bills and said Ms Wells had “failed the kitchen table test”. He also for her office to refer the expenses to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, which Ms Wells has declined to do.
“The minister’s asserted that it’s within the rules, but ministers are required to publicly justify their expenses and make sure it’s in line with community expectation,” he said.
Coalition industry and innovation spokesman Alex Hawke said Ms Wells’ spending “would make the royals’ blush”.
He said that while it was within the guidelines, he didn’t believe the spending passed the pub test and called on Mr Albanese to “justify why Anika Wells is flying around the world and spending a lot of money outside of the expectations of ordinary Australians”.
“I think these are very expensive trips for a relatively junior minister, and she hasn’t justified why the expenses were so high,” he told Sky.
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Originally published as Anthony Albanese defends Minister Anika Wells’ $100k New York flights, Paris meal expenses and family ski trip
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