If you want to understand why Anika Wells will probably survive the frenzy of expenses excitement despite falling on her sword and inviting an audit of travel, don’t waste energy interrogating the specifics of the drama swirling around her.

In Anthony Albanese’s Canberra, facts are often background noise. Ministerial survival depends on a single, unwavering principle: the prime minister refuses to give ground to his enemies. He’d sooner sandpaper his own shins.

Albanese has been in federal parliament long enough to know what ministerial bloodletting looks like. He arrived in 1996 and watched John Howard’s rookie ministry implode under the weight of travel rorts, shareholding breaches and expense “misunderstandings”. Intent on setting high standards of integrity, seven frontbenchers resigned following breaches of Howard’s ministerial code of conduct.

Then-assistant treasurer Jim Short and parliamentary secretary to the treasurer Brian Gibson were both forced to quit in October 1996 over undeclared conflicts of interest, and parliamentary secretary to the minister for health and family services Bob Woods followed in February 1997, after questions were raised about his expense claims.

In July 1997, small business minister Geoff Prosser resigned when it emerged he owned a shopping centre while overseeing commercial tenancy rules under the Trade Practices Act. Not long after, John Sharp and Peter McGauran also stepped down amid similar scrutiny of their use of public funds. David Jull, who oversaw the scheme, was also sacked.

It was a humiliating parade of self-inflicted wounds. So much so that when he just survived for a second term, Howard ensured some of those high ministerial standards were watered down. He then decided to fight.

Albanese can recall those days with a near-religious devotion. Anyone who’s spent any candid time with him since his ascension to The Lodge relays the observation that he does not give ground. Not to opponents, not to the media, not even to political gravity. He boasts – openly, proudly – that he “didn’t lose one” minister in his first term. Not one. Not even when logic, optics and centuries of Westminster precedent suggested he should.

Michelle Rowland is Exhibit A in the Albanese Doctrine of Ministerial Indestructibility.

Rowland’s survival wasn’t just unlikely; in any previous era it would have been impossible.

This was a communications minister who attended a lavish birthday lunch hosted – and paid for – by Responsible Wagering Australia, the lobbyists for Sportsbet, Ladbrokes and Bet365.

This wasn’t some beige canape mixer in a Canberra function room. It was held in the private dining room of Society, one of Melbourne’s most expensive restaurants. The event was pitched as a “policy briefing” and organised through Labor’s corporate fundraising arm, the Federal Labor Business Forum, where membership costs up to $110,000 a year for tiered access to senior government figures.

That revelation followed earlier controversy over $19,000 worth of donations from Sportsbet on the eve of the federal election, including an $8960 dinner at Rockpool. Rowland admitted “transparency and accountability” mattered and conceded that while she had broken no rules, voters “expect better” of ministers.

Under the Howard code? The press release would’ve been drafted before dessert.

Under Albanese? She didn’t even wobble. She was then moved from the portfolio after the election to become attorney-general. The chief law officer. Anika Wells took her ministry.

Even the ministers at the heart of the fallout from the NZYQ High Court decision were quietly shuffled around and allowed to save face.

For Albanese, sacking a minister is not an ethical calculation. It would be an admission of error and an opening for opponents to howl about “government in crisis”. So he simply won’t feed his enemies even the smallest morsel.

This brings us back to Wells. Now that she has referred her travel to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, she’ll more than likely be told all travel was within the rules and will then face a political calculation whether some could be paid back to save face.

Whatever accusations currently orbit her are, in the broader context of Australian ministerial history, minor tectonic tremors. Nowhere near the Richter scale of some of the past scandals or even the Howard-era carousel of ministers. If she falls foul of the system now, too many will have to follow.

Albanese knows that. Deep down, he still acts like he’s in opposition – defensive, suspicious, permanently braced for ambush. Ministerial resignations are seen not as ethical necessities but as acts of political self-harm.

Wells will survive for the simplest of reasons: her political fate is tethered to Albanese’s pride, not her own actions. He needs to project stability. He needs, above all, to deny his opponents a scalp.

Wells may not be indestructible. But in Albanese’s Canberra, she doesn’t need to be.

She just needs to stand behind a prime minister who refuses to give an inch.

Read more on Wells’ expenses

• • Comcars and sports events: Wells billed taxpayers for a car to wait hours at tennis, flew husband to Boxing Day Tests, grand finals
  • James Massola analysis: This week was supposed to be a triumph. Instead, it is a trial
  • Thredbo ski trip: Nearly $3000 charged to bring husband and two children to resort
  • Birthday party: Wells attended friend’s soiree during $3600 taxpayer trip

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