Usually confident Albanese puts a wrong foot forward

2 hours ago 1

Editorial

December 11, 2025 — 5.40pm

December seems to rattle prime ministers. Scott Morrison achieved a sort of gormless immortality when he declared on December 20, 2019, “I don’t hold a hose” to explain why he was MIA in Hawaii as the Black Summer bushfires raged back home.

Just short of six years later, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had his own Morrison moment on Thursday.

He was hoping to bathe in the glory of his government’s under-16 social media ban, but instead has been forced to field questions on the growing scandal surrounding MPs’ expenses. One query clearly got under his collar. He was asked by reporters about parliament’s power to change rules governing politicians’ expenses that had been legislated by the previous Coalition government, and he snapped: “I haven’t changed the rules … I’m not the finance minister.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Communications Anika Wells in Canberra on Thursday.

Such a disingenuous assertion is the sort of literal buck-passing that ignores reality: while the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority enforces the MPs’ spending rules, the rules themselves are set by regulation, administered by the finance minister and special minister of state. Parliament can amend the law underpinning the watchdog but Albanese has added clout: he allocates the portfolios.

So Albanese ducked responsibility for the widening MPs’ expenses issue, refusing to concede there was anything wrong with senior MPs’ uncapped spousal and family travel allowances.

Following more than a week of bad press about the expenses of the Minister for Communications and Minister for Sport Anika Wells and others, the issue has refused to die, with revelations Special Minister of State Don Farrell and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young had charged 136 and 78 spouse flights, respectively, to the taxpayer since 2022. Wells has now referred herself to the expenses watchdog for an audit.

It also emerged on Thursday that dozens of senior office holders were exempt from any limits on family reunion flights. They include ministers, the Senate president, house speaker, the opposition leader and their deputy, allowing them to fly their spouse around the country with no cost limit.

A number of nations have expressed admiration for the Albanese government’s world-first social media reforms, but back home it is a different story.

New polling showed nearly 70 per cent of parents supported the legislation. But the growing scandal surrounding MPs’ expenses has seriously undercut the government’s ability to continue reaping the credit for the teen social media ban and put the opposition on the front foot for the first time since rumours of challenges to Sussan Ley’s leadership and Barnaby Joyce’s flirtation with One Nation hogged the headlines.

Since the failure of the referendum of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the world has increasingly appeared to be the prime minister’s oyster. He repaired relations with China, re-embraced Pacific nations, successfully met US President Donald Trump and has grown in confidence and status with each win.

Albanese’s uncharacteristic Morrison moment was certainly a surprise. But the prime minister cannot continue to ignore MPs expenses exposed by the Wells saga. The system is sorely in need of urgent repair.

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