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 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 to protect Australian children at the United Nations.
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, Paris Olympics and Paris Paralympics – she was attending in her capacity as sports minister.
One of the trips included a dinner with Wells, her 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.
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 United Nations General Assembly. The minister did not provide details on the trip, but said the flights were not first class.
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“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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