The Albanese government is proudly promoting its groundbreaking under-16 social media ban – but the ongoing coverage of Communications Minister Anika Wells’ expenses is raining on their grand parade.
If only Wells had explained the details of how she spent almost $100,000 on three business-class flights for her trip to accompany Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the ban, her expenses would not have taken on a life of their own.
Federal Minister for Communications Anika Wells holds a press conference on Wednesday before an event marking the worlds first teenage social media ban.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Instead, her obfuscation after the trip details became public last week in Senate estimates resulted in leaked examples of other expenses she has claimed for her family to join her at various events. The smell of wrongdoing has hung around as the government sought to blow its own trumpet on the world-first ban.
It is difficult to understand how the government got itself into such needless trouble. Coming clean on the New York expenses would have prevented Wells becoming a major distraction.
Her judgment on a range of other claims has now been called into question, even though she is 28th in the list of parliament’s biggest-billing MPs claiming family reunion expenses that have been deemed within the rules.
According to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, her expenses for family travel came to $43,026. She trailed far behind the top four, north-west Queensland Nationals MP Andrew Willcox with a bill of $123,769 for family travel, West Australian independent senator Fatima Payman ($118,790), South Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell ($116,306), and West Australian Assistant Minister Pat Gorman ($112,866).
The focus on Wells’ expenses has raised awareness of the onerous work-life balance for many politicians. But getting the public to pay for family trips to the snow, football grand finals, cricket tests and a friend’s birthday party is a bad look – especially when many Australians are struggling to make ends meet.
Little wonder her situation has reignited a level of public outrage at politicians’ expenses not seen since John Howard’s first years in power, when he lost some seven MPs to expenses and pecuniary interests scandals.
Wells’ expenses have exposed a system ripe for review. But don’t hold your breath waiting for politicians to vote on new legislation to change the rules governing expenses claims.
After the 2019 Britany Higgins rape, it took MPs more than three years to act on recommendations by former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins to establish an Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission after she found four out of five people working in Commonwealth parliamentary offices had experienced sexual harassment.
After a week of mounting leaks, Wells has now referred her expense claims for an audit. “I’m happy for mine to be scrutinised,” she said. “But at the end of the day, I don’t write these rules.”
Blithely washing her hands does not pass the pub test. Wells is hiding behind a system of privilege that has allowed poor judgment to overshadow her portfolio just as the government’s teen social media ban puts Australia on show as a nation that values teen safety over big tech profits.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
