The media pile-on over Anika Wells’s excessive expenses has again underlined mass media and political hypocrisy. Andrew Gardiner exposes the triumph of politics over policy.
Communications Minister Anika Wells spent $120,000 on a trip to New York in September, to spruik our “world’s first” social media ban at the UN General Assembly.
As Sports Minister (2022-25) she spent roughly the same amount on three trips to Europe in a year for the Rugby World Cup, the Olympic Games and the Paralympics, plus another $13,000 to fly her husband to three successive AFL Grand Finals and cricket events, among other eyebrow-raising acts.
Always a hot button issue for punters, the tabloid media jumped all over this alleged extravagance. “High-flying bank executive is biggest winner from Anika Wells’ ‘family reunion’ splurge”, screamed the Daily Mail, dubbing Wells’ bethrothed ‘Freebie’ Finn McCarthy.
The usual suspects at News Corp weren’t to be outdone: “the depth and breadth of (her) spending spree on our dime is frankly astonishing; don’t stand between a Labor politician and a taxpayer-funded junket”, wrote Rita Panahi in the Herald Sun.
“You know this is scaring the government because Wells, the Communications Minister, has gone into hiding just one day before her new ban on children using social media”, Andrew Bolt chimed in on Sky News.
The Price is wrong
We haven’t seen this much righteous indignation from the Fourth Estate since “Upgrade Albo” (Prime Minister Albanese, Labor, NSW) was pilloried for days on end over Qantas perks late last year. That’s two Labor MPs.
ALP sources are keen, in the interests of fairness and balance, to see a certain, serial offender from the Coalition benches get her turn on front pages and leading news bulletins. If Wells is the benchmark, this MP is more-than-deserving of some time in the barrel.
For starters, this Senator is known to have taken private jets to cost of living crisis meetings just 300km away. She’s been forced to repay $11,000 over 13 cases of improper use of a government car to attend her husband’s concerts, and flew business class 76 times at a cost to taxpayers of $76,509.19 in the lead-up to a certain referendum in 2023.
The elite of the Anti-Elites
In a January move to which ‘ironic’ can hardly do justice, this anti-‘elites’ culture warrior was made the coalition’s “government efficiency” spokesperson, charged with exposing and ending “wasteful spending“. Members of the cynical Canberra press gallery would normally have to wait years before low-hanging fodder like this presented itself.
As most readers will have guessed, the Coalition Senator was none other than Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, media-ordained “indigenous leader” who her own Walpiri people won’t have a bar of.
Price had what observers called a “charmed run” when campaigning for a ‘No’ vote at 2023’s Voice Referendum, rarely pressed on details and protected by L-NP ally Warren Mundine, who at times looked like a human shield at media events.
Price v Wells
Comparing Wells’ alleged misdeeds with those of Price is a complicated task. Only a few ‘apples to apples’ correlations can be made between the expenses of Price, an NT Senator with a largely domestic portfolio (before she wound up on the back bench) and Wells, a city-based MP from Brisbane’s north whose ministerial duties demanded trips overseas.
Family travel, factoring in distance and airfares, is perhaps the best measure, and on this score Price leaves Wells in the red, Alice Springs dust. Numbers from 2022-25 tell the tale: per Belinda Jones and the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA) Price gobbled up $63,023.92 in family travel expenses over this period, with Wells coming in a distant second on $36,142.90.
Price’s family travelled further at greater cost, of course, but the kicker arrives when you discover how old her children are. They’re adults, aged 23, 21 and 19 respectively (in contrast, Wells’ three children are much younger).
Many taxpayers would regard the practice of bringing grown adults along for the ride – using a ‘family reunion’ entitlement surely meant for MPs with smaller children – as an abuse of a broken system.
Media hypocrisy
How did the media respond to Price’s extravagance? There was some coverage – even a ‘tut tut’ from the Daily Mail (you, the taxpayer, are “footing the huge cost”) – but it was nothing remotely resembling this month’s Wells feeding frenzy.
An MWM search of legacy media websites or social media feeds* found there were 227 mentions of Wells’ travel woes this month, compared to a smattering of just 10 for Price.
The sheer, concentrated volume of Wells’ coverage – on Sky News in particular – set the agenda, ensuring Wells trended on social media, while the few and sparse articles on Price ensured no such critical mass for her.
Both politicians, of course, mounted arguments in their defence.
Wells insisted she “followed the rules”, while Price took a more Trumpian tack, accusing the media of a “smear campaign” over her 10 media mentions.
The old Pub Test
Whatever their relative merits, neither of these rejoinders are likely to pass the proverbial pub test. But the IPEA says Jacinta Price ranked 11th in ‘family reunion’ travel over the past year, while in the most recent results (per Channel 9) Anika Wells ranked 68th.
The media seems to have given Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and most of the 10 MPs above her on the family reunion expenses list something of a free pass, just as it gave scant coverage to many of the Morrison Government’s travel rorts, documented here by MWM. The question is: why?
Anika Wells is currently sitting on a decision over limits to gambling ads. IMAGE: Pixabay (on-screen text added).
You don’t need a PhD in political science to know there’s an inbuilt pre-disposition favouring free market, right-of-centre parties in legacy media. Corporate media owners prefer the ‘lower tax, fewer regulations’ world view of the Liberal and National Parties, a fact duly reflected in news coverage and commentary by their hired hands.
Yes the politics … but what about the policy?
Notwithstanding News Corp’s sketchy disappearing of its initial exclusive on Wells, the L-NP’s links with certain Murdoch scribes ensured its Senate Estimates attack on Wells would be amplified from the rooftops.
That, plus the likelihood voters have forgotten the towering travel bills of the Morrison years, meant Wells’ wanderings achieved that most dreaded of monikers: scandal.
The media ecosystem surrounding Australian politics shows a strange set of priorities at the best of times. While a few million spent on Wells’ travel expenses can be seen as newsworthy, her policy decisions – which generate little to no coverage or debate – are vastly more impactful on Australians.
Take for example her delaying a decision on (and expected abandonment of) plans for a total ban on online gambling ads, likely using another Wells responsibility – the kids’ social media ban – “as cover to water down the policy”. The ban on under-16s is somehow seen as a “solution”, limiting exposure to these ads by a cohort reliant on pocket money when breaking the rules for a flutter.
How that helps older Australians with actual, disposable income is a mystery. Meanwhile, harm from online and other forms of gambling (relationship breakdowns, financial hardship, health impacts and suicide) cost us $25 billion over two years from 2022-23.
That’s a lot more than Wells’ travel bill, yet “these harms, including suicide, have been systematically underreported” by corporate media, Melbourne University’s Angela Rintoul says. Coincidentally or not, free-to-air TV networks brought in around $162 million from gambling ads revenue in the year to April 2023.
Legacy media had two choices in its coverage of Anika Wells. “Should we be fair and balanced by largely ignoring her shenanigans (just as we did with Jacinta Nampijinpa Price) and should we give Wells as much (or more) of a serve on gambling ads as we did on travel perks?
In both cases, readers could be forgiven for thinking money won the day.
*MWM searched websites or social media feeds from News Corp mastheads, AFR, the West Australian, the Canberra Times, the Daily Mail, Sky News, Seven News, Ten News, Nine media, AFR, SBS and the ABC to compare coverage of Wells’ and Price’s travel controversies.