Wells left car waiting for hours at NRL grand final, costing more than $1200

2 months ago 18

Sports Minister Anika Wells left a Comcar limousine waiting for nearly 10 hours while she attended the 2022 NRL and NRLW grand finals, costing taxpayers more than $1200.

This masthead also revealed on Monday that the embattled sport and communications minister had charged taxpayers nearly $1000 for a Comcar to wait for her while she was at the Australian Open tennis. But the cost of her Comcar usage at the rugby league grand finals was even higher, totalling $1287.76, according to Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority data.

Communications and Sport Minister Anika Wells has defended her use of expenses and family reunion entitlements.

According to the Department of Finance’s website, the cost of a Comcar limousine is $133.20 per hour.

The furore over MPs funding family trips and travel expenses with taxpayer money has also embroiled a second government minister, with expense data revealing Don Farrell has used his entitlements hundreds of times to fly his family around the country since Labor was elected in 2022.

Wells also received two free corporate suite tickets to attend the NRL grand finals, according to her register of members interests declarations. Tickets for corporate hospitality at NRL grand finals start at about $1700 per person at Accor Stadium in Sydney.

This masthead can also reveal that Wells charged taxpayers $480.90 for Comcar usage on January 1, 2024, the same day that she and her husband, Finn McCarthy, attended the prime minister’s Sydney residence, Kirribilli, for a reception for the Australian and Pakistan men’s cricket teams.

Wells billed the taxpayer $1274.72 for McCarthy’s flights on that occasion as he returned to Brisbane on the same day after attending the function.

That flight, and the minister’s use of Comcars, all appear to be within the rules that govern the usage of parliamentary entitlements.

But as the scandal over Wells’ frequent charges to the taxpayer grows – and spreads to other ministers and shadow ministers including Farrell and the Coalition’s Melissa McIntosh – the latest revelations will prompt further questions about whether they meet community expectations, particularly during a cost-of-living crisis.

Farrell charges for hundreds of family flights

Farrell charged taxpayers more than $116,000 for family travel since 2022, according to Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority data. This includes flying a family member to Uluru, where he had been gifted tickets to a Wintjiri Wiru Sunset Dinner in August 2024.

The flights that coincided with the dinner cost $2093.65 for a return trip from Adelaide to Uluru via Sydney. Other family travel matched dates that Farrell had been gifted tickets, including return flights for a family member to Sydney, costing $1385.21, at the same time as opera La Boheme at the Sydney Opera House. Farrell had been given a double pass and hospitality, according to his register of interests.

Minister for Trade and Tourism, and Special Minister of State Don Farrell.

Farrell defended the expenses, saying they were within the guidelines and that the rules allowed for carers and single parents to become politicians.

“The family reunion provisions are an important feature of our framework, allowing a diverse range of members and senators to represent their communities in our nation’s parliament,” he said in a statement.

“Our parliament would be a lesser place if it weren’t for the mechanisms that allow young mothers, single parents, those with families, and those with caring responsibilities to serve as elected members.”

Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke, in 2020, repaid the cost of flights for his family to join him on a trip to Uluru in 2012 because, while within the rules, he said the expenses “did not meet community expectations”.

Under the family reunion rules, federal MPs are allowed up to three return business class flights per year for family members flying between the MP’s home base and a city other than Canberra, and the value of nine business class flights to Canberra, though there is some flexibility to the rules that allows ministers to claim more.

Coalition MP calls for Wells to resign as minister

Wells has defended the flights and expenses as within the rules, but has endured ongoing criticism for the nature of her trips and a lack of judgment in flying her children and husband to Thredbo for a ski trip, and billing taxpayers thousands to fly her husband to three AFL grand finals and two Boxing Day Test matches. On most occasions, her husband flew home to Brisbane on the same day.

Wells’ expenses first came under scrutiny last Wednesday when it was revealed in an answer to a Senate estimates committee that she billed taxpayers almost $100,000 to fly herself, a staffer and a public servant to New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan on Tuesday called for Wells to resign because though she may not have broken any rules, there was a pattern of misjudgment that did not meet community expectations.

Family reunion travel rules

The obligations of MPs when determining whether they can claim family reunion expenses.

Dominant purpose: Under family reunion rules, an MP’s family can accompany or join them at Commonwealth expense while they are conducting parliamentary business. Travel must be for the “dominant purpose” of facilitating the family life of the parliamentarian.
Value for money: MPs are required to use public resources for parliamentary business in a way that achieves value for money. MPs can have family members travel to Canberra under a cost-based limit per year, and can claim up to three return business-class airfares for family to travel elsewhere in Australia.
Good faith: MPs need to act ethically and in good faith when using, or accounting for, public resources. They must not seek to disguise personal or commercial business as parliamentary business.
Personal responsibility and accountability: An MP is personally responsible and accountable for their use of public resources and should consider how the public would perceive their use of these resources.
Conditions: An MP must not make a claim, or incur an expense, in relation to a public resource if they have not met all of the conditions for its provision.

“I think there’s too many yellow cards here from Anika Wells. I think she needs to be shown a red,” he told Sky News.

Canavan said getting a Comcar to wait seven hours at the tennis was “ridiculous”, and other ministers had been forced out of parliamentary positions for less, including former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.

“You’re spending other people’s money, not your own. So I don’t think Anika Wells, as a minister of the crown, has shown any care and diligence here to make sure her spending ... meets that value for money test,” Canavan said.

“The question now is to the prime minister, what standards do you have? Do you apply any discipline to your ministers to pay a price if they’re not seen to be spending money in a value sense?”

This masthead revealed on Monday that Wells charged taxpayers almost $1000 to have a government-funded Comcar wait seven hours for her while she attended the Australian Open tennis final in January 2023, and the Australian Financial Review reported on Tuesday she claimed another $765 for a chauffeur-driven car while attending the Magic Millions Race Day on the Gold Coast in January 2024.

Coalition figures have challenged the government’s response, saying the travel was outside what Australians expect.

“Whether things are in the guidelines or not, it’s always up to the individual parliamentarian to justify his or her expenses. That’s always been the case,” shadow treasurer Ted O’Brien told ABC Radio National.

He called the judgment of Wells and the prime minister into question for claiming the expenses were appropriate during a cost-of-living crisis.

“What we see here is the prime minister defending a minister who is spending money that is hard to justify in the public eye,” O’Brien said.

“Saying that this level of spending is fine – that goes to his judgment.”

O’Brien told Sky News Wells’ expenses should be audited by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino defended Wells on Tuesday, and said the family reunion entitlements process was transparent.

“The community has a right to expect that expenses are expended in a careful way, and an appropriate way,” Mulino told Sky News.

“The purpose of any trip needs to be a work trip and that I think is the standard against which it’s judged. And I think that that would have applied in all [Wells’] instances.”