Wells attended friend’s birthday party during $3600 taxpayer-funded trip

Communications Minister Anika Wells took a taxpayer-funded $3600 trip in June during which she attended a friend’s birthday party, in revelations that come just days after the disclosure of her team’s almost $100,000 spending on New York flights for social media ban events in September.

The three-day trip to Adelaide from June 6 to June 8 this year included official meetings with state ministers and federal colleagues, but Wells also attended a birthday party for Connie Blefari, an adviser to former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard.

Over the course of the trip, which was first reported by The Australian Financial Review, Wells charged the taxpayer $3681.82, including $2683.68 for return flights between Brisbane and Adelaide; $572.14 in official car services; and $426 on accommodation. No travel expenses were charged on Saturday, June 7, the day of the party.

Wells’ spokesman said: “The minister’s travel was in line with the guidelines.”

Under federal law, parliamentarians are entitled to use public resources “for the dominant purpose of conducting parliamentary business” with a requirement of ensuring “value for money” in expenditure.

A contravention of those orders may result in a penalty of 25 per cent of the value of the public resources abused.

A decade ago, numerous MPs had to repay expenses billed to the taxpayer for things including a family trip to the snow and the wedding of a radio shock jock. In 2013, Gillard travelled to Byron Bay on a federal jet for official business that happened to coincide with the wedding of then-staffer, now treasurer, Jim Chalmers. That travel was within the rules.

Likewise, there is no suggestion Wells contravened the rules on either of her trips, because they both included numerous official engagements.

According to Wells’ official diary, she met with state ministers Emily Bourke and Chris Picton, who is married to Blefari, as well as attending a meeting with Trade Minister Don Farrell’s chief of staff, Ben Rillo. Several other events in the minister’s diary that took place while she was in Adelaide have been redacted.

On Wednesday, Wells refused to be drawn on a $190,000 trip she took to New York to spruik the government’s teen social media ban, insisting she was doing important work at the United Nations to protect Australian children.

In separate information that was revealed on Friday, Wells travelled to Europe three times in the 12 months to September last year at a combined cost of $116,000. All three trips were for major sporting events – the Rugby World Cup, the Paris Olympics and the Paris Paralympics – she was attending in her capacity as sport minister.

One of the trips included a dinner with Wells, a staffer, and the then Australian ambassador to France, Gillian Bird, and her staffer, which cost about $1000. Almost half was charged to Australian taxpayers.

Of the trips to Europe, a government spokesman said: “The minister travelled in her role as minister for sport and vice president of the Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee. All travel and expenses were in accordance with the guidelines.”

Liberal senator Sarah Henderson said it was extraordinary that Wells had not “adequately explained” the cost of her travel to New York, which came in the days after an Optus Triple Zero outage linked to the deaths of three people. As communications minister, the outage was in Wells’ portfolio.

“We are all guided by the rules, and we need to travel, principally for parliamentary and in the case of ministers, for ministerial business, I can’t speak for Anika Wells in relation to the report today, but I think that she has got some more explaining to do,” Henderson told Sky News.

Opposition spokesman on parliamentary standards James McGrath branded the minister “air-miles Anika”, calling her a “part-time minister and a full-time frequent flyer”.

“This minister is taking the taxpayers of Australia for an absolute ride whilst she sips on a spritz as the majority of Australians suffer at the hands of this government’s reckless spending,” McGrath said.

He said Wells should not just be audited by the expenses watchdog but must also be referred to the prime minister’s department to probe whether she breached ministerial standards.

“The revelations over the past week suggest the standards in this code have not been complied with,” he said.

Wells billed taxpayers $70,000 to host an event while she was in New York, after she, a staffer and a public servant spent almost $100,000 on flights to attend the function on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The minister did not provide details on the trip, but said the flights were not first class.

“The reason you know all those things [the cost of the New York trip] is because we’re transparent about them, and we will disclose them, and we’ll continue to disclose information about that trip through the usual processes,” Wells said at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

“I’ll continue to be transparent about what that cost, what it looks like, what we did, in the usual way.”

Wells’ return commercial flights to New York cost $34,426.58, her deputy chief of staff’s cost $38,165, and the flight of the online safety assistant secretary, who flew two days earlier, cost $22,236.31. A first-class Qantas return flight from Canberra to New York was available for about $16,000 on Wednesday. Flight costs are variable due to timing and seasonal changes.

Accommodation and transport costs for the trio in New York were $US15,985 ($24,275). The government hosted an event at UN headquarters on protecting children in the digital age, which cost $US45,744.11 ($69,500).

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