{"id":333969,"date":"2025-12-08T02:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T02:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/333969\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T02:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T02:01:08","slug":"anika-wells-claimed-more-than-8500-for-family-travel-to-melbourne-during-afl-grand-final-weekends-over-three-years-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/333969\/","title":{"rendered":"Anika Wells claimed more than $8,500 for family travel to Melbourne during AFL grand final weekends over three years | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anika Wells claimed more than $8500 in family travel expenses to Melbourne during AFL grand final weekends in 2022, 2023 and 2024, when she received free suite tickets to the matches.<\/p>\n

The minister for communications and sport has stood by her use of family travel expenses as within the rules, but the Coalition opposition is demanding reforms to expense rules and an inquiry into Wells\u2019 spending by the independent parliamentary expenses authority (IPEA), which tracks and reports politicians\u2019 spending on travel and office expenses.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Nine newspapers reported Wells had used family travel entitlements \u2013 available to all MPs to help politicians stay connected with their families \u2013 to fly her husband from Brisbane to Melbourne for the Boxing Day cricket Test in 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

It came after revelations Wells had used the entitlement to fly family members to the Thredbo ski resort and the Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix, as well as scrutiny on her travel to France for sporting events, to Adelaide for meetings coinciding with a friend\u2019s birthday, and nearly $100,000 in air fares<\/a> for the minister and two staff to fly to New York City.<\/p>\n

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Wells, as minister for sport, is invited to numerous major matches and tournaments by stakeholders, and does not claim family travel expenses for the vast majority of those.<\/p>\n

But Guardian Australia can reveal Brisbane-based Wells also charged taxpayers to fly family members to Melbourne on the weekends of the AFL grand finals in 2022, 2023 and 2024, after analysis of Wells\u2019 register of parliamentary interests and IPEA reports.<\/p>\n

Her register of interests declares \u201c2 x Corporate Suite tickets to 2022 AFL Grand Final as guest of AFL\u201d on 24 September that year. Her IPEA report for that period shows a \u201cfamily traveller\u201d expense of $2,913.68, for travel from Brisbane to Melbourne on 24 September, and a Melbourne to Brisbane leg the following day.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Wells declared \u201c2 x Suite tickets to 2023 AFL Grand Final as guest of Australian Football League\u201d on her register of interests. That game, held on 30 September, coincided with four family traveller expenses, for travel between Brisbane and Melbourne on 27 September, and returning from Melbourne to Brisbane on 1 October. The total bill for the four expense claims was $3,537.15.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Wells declared \u201c2 Tickets to 2024 AFL Grand Final \u2013 Guest of the AFL\u201d on her register. That year\u2019s game was held on 28 September. Wells claimed $2,126.70 for family travel from Brisbane to Melbourne on 28 September, and returning to Brisbane that same day.<\/p>\n

The total bill for family travel to Melbourne coinciding with AFL grand final weekends came to $8,577.53.<\/p>\n

Wells\u2019 office was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

The family travel rules, according to the IPEA, annually allow for nine business class return air fares to Canberra for a parliamentarian\u2019s spouse or nominees, plus three economy fares for each child, from their home city. For travel to destinations outside Canberra, parliamentarians are allowed to claim a total of three return business class air fares in total, not each family member.<\/p>\n

There is no suggestion Wells contravened these rules.<\/p>\n

\"CommunicationsCommunications minister Anika Wells defends $95,000 trip to UN general assembly in New York \u2013 video<\/p>\n

\u201cFamily reunion travel can be accessed where: the parliamentarian is travelling for the dominant purpose of conducting parliamentary business, and; the family member\/s travels to accompany or join the parliamentarian, and; travel is for the dominant purpose of facilitating the family life of the parliamentarian,\u201d according to the IPEA\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

In a Sky News interview on Sunday<\/a>, the minister defended her use of the travel allowance, saying she \u201cused my family reunion entitlement within the guidelines, as every parliamentarian can do\u201d for her family\u2019s trip to Thredbo.<\/p>\n

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, speaking on the ABC, also backed Wells\u2019s travel to the United Nations and Thredbo, noting the trips were to promote the government\u2019s world-leading social media ban for under-16s and to announce funding for Paralympic sport respectively. Asked about the family travel spending, Albanese replied: \u201cthere are family reunion entitlements available. All of the travel was within guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberal senator Maria Kovacic urged Wells to self-refer her travel spending to the IPEA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis does not meet community expectations. Australians believe that it is fine, in my view, for parliamentarians to actually be able to spend time with their families. But this is a very different scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shadow communications spokesperson, Melissa McIntosh, called for a review of travel guidelines and for parliament to \u201ctighten them up\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the minister, you can\u2019t just say \u2018this is in the guidelines\u2019 when your husband\u2019s going with you to the cricket and to the F1 \u2026 that\u2019s not really what it\u2019s meant to be about,\u201d she told 2CC radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt when her kids \u2013 you know, she\u2019s a mum as well \u2013 but now seeing her husband has gone off to the F1 and the cricket, I\u2019ve probably lost any support for her on these ones.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anika Wells claimed more than $8500 in family travel expenses to Melbourne during AFL grand final weekends in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-333969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}