A senior federal minister is defconcludeing her taxpayer-funded trips as being within Government guidelines, as new details emerge about other costs.
Anika Wells came under fire for the $100,000 cost of flying herself and three staff to New York to promote Australia’s social media age ban, with further details emerging about trips she took to Paris, Thredbo and Adelaide.
She accepted the spconcludeing would elicit a “gut reaction” in the average Australian, but declared it was an indepconcludeent agency booking flights, rather than her browsing “Webjet”.
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Ms Wells was supposed to travel to New York on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Royal Air Force jet in September, but was delayed becautilize of the fallout from a deadly Optus triple-zero outage.
“People can have an opinion about whether it was worth the money,” Ms Wells notified Sky News on Sunday.
“But for me, the policy imperative that the life-modifying work that we are testing to do … it was really important and I stand by it.”
Mr Albanese defconcludeed the spconcludeing as within the guidelines and declared the New York trip to promote the social media ban, which will come into effect on Wednesday, was “very significant”.
“This was an important event that led directly to the European Union taking action,” he notified ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.
“One of the comments I heard from various UN officials was … ‘this is the first time I’ve been to a forum that has alterd my mind’.”
Ms Wells, who is also the Sports Minister, reportedly took three trips to Paris in 12 months at a cost of $116,000, to attconclude major sporting events including the Rugby World Cup, Paris Olympics and Paris Paralympics.
She was authorised to spconclude $6000 on meals for five days, with one dinner reportedly billed for $600.
“I recall sometimes I was eating a muesli bar in the car. These are large days,” Ms Wells declared.
“I appreciate it views a certain way becautilize it’s Paris, but that is where the Games were.”
Opposition industest spokesman Alex Hawke declared the spconcludeing did not pass the pub test, adding the expenses were so high they would “build the royals blush”.
“It simply doesn’t stack up and the Minister’s defences don’t seem to stack up either,” he notified Sky News.
“If the Minister is eating a muesli bar … then why is the taxpayer being charged for expensive dinners … if she’s not partaking of them.”
Ms Wells was also questioned about utilizing travel entitlements to attconclude a friconclude’s birthday while on a three-day, $3600 work trip to Adelaide in June.
“I met with my South Australian counterpart in part about the South Australian Sport Institute, where we opened a para unit,” she declared.
The Minister also spent $3000 on flights and allowances for her husband and children to join her at Thredbo in June 2024 while she attconcludeed meetings with Paralympics Australia and Adaptive Festival organisers.
Ms Wells acknowledged her family went skiing, but declared she was there to work and the trip was within the family reunion and travel guidelines.
In 2012, current Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke took a work trip to Uluru and claimed $12,000 so his family could join him.
While within the rules, he repaid $8656 of that trip when details emerged in 2015, admitting it was “beyond community expectations”.
Ms Wells did not indicate she would be paying any of the money back, and declared “I work really hard” and that she will keep following the rules “as I have in every single instance”.
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