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By Mark Kenny
A version of this article was originally published by The Canberra Times.
It is worth conjecturing that if the current outrage about taxpayer-funded family reunion privileges had originated ab initio from an exploration of a scandalous $4 million program with non-existent guidelines and no vigorous auditing, the Minister for Communications and Sport, Anika Wells, might only have been mentioned in passing. If at all.
Why? Because in quantum dollar terms, other ministers and MPs on all sides have claimed more and some double - not that you'd glean this from the shrill coverage or demands for resignation.
This is not to say that Wells' embrace of "entitlements" should not raise eyebrows. Quite clearly it should. But as ol' eyebrows himself, John Howard, was fond of saying, it is important to keep a sense of perspective.
For Wells, it is the particulars that look bad which is why her insistence that everything is within the rules, feels so wan. It's not the rules people are interested in but the example set by MPs.
Repeatedly taking one's spouse to the Boxing Day Test, F1, and other exclusive events seems pretty loose. Or rather, shamefully tight. Many people might say ministers, at three or four times average earnings, can afford to pay themselves.
On the other hand, there can be few ministries placing a more constant call on evenings and weekends than sport and bearing in mind that these provisions were specifically designed to allow MPs to see their families, each of these things may (may) be justifiable. She is a young MP-parent, to be sure.
As always, if the answer is not in tightening rules to disadvantage female MPs, it is transparency. Here, the government already has a model in its election donations laws - real-time publicly visible declaration.
Making MPs answerable within, say, 24 hours, for any spousal entitlements drawn, would have, one suspects, a sobering effect.
Right now though, unless there are subsequent findings that Wells breached the rules, the extreme pressure on her alone explains something not very complimentary about the fickleness of journalism, politics, human nature, and sheer happenstance.
Before getting to the league table of family-fliers, let's remember the unique pathway into this frenzy and why it is that Wells is singularly in the crosshairs.
Primarily, it is because what drew the media focus on her family travel was the cost of a trip to spruik Australia's social media crackdown on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Her liberal use of the family reunion provisions, Comcars and all the rest of it, then attracted media coverage because, well, it was iterative. That is, it offered further grist to take the story forward while validating its starting point, even if that starting point had actually proved hollow and hyperbolic.
The minister, went the unstated logic, was continually exercising poor judgement.
True, $95,000 worth of return airfares is a lot, but it never occurred to most media that the national interest case for the travel itself was probably stronger than for any other ministerial travel.
It is still not entirely clear why the government did such a limp job on this.
So, allow me. In its world-first teen ban on social media, Australia has enacted bold, novel law, the future efficacy of which relies on the adoption of mirroring legislation by other states - the more the better. The age limit has attracted world-wide interest. In an era in which supra-national platforms can distort elections with misinformation and intimidate governments, the only hope is collective push-back among determined democracies. Solidarity.
For the relevant minister to speak directly about the genesis of this law, establish face-to-face contacts with world leaders and officials and develop plans for future collaboration, is invaluable. No junket, this was targeted, practical diplomacy and would be worth doing at many times the price.
Another element of this broader affair also bears mention. That is, journalists repeatedly lamenting that the world-first social media ban "should" have been the focus but was being "drowned out" by attention on the minister's travel costs. Whose fault was that? The government's for sure, but did media play no role, exercise no editorial judgement?
Then there's the ever-more hackneyed "pub test". This is a journalistic escape hatch for any argument that begins purposefully but peters out in "the vibe ... ".
Well, if it is the vibe upon which the PM must sack a minister, consider this.
Of the 30 members and senators who tapped the family travel provisions most enthusiastically since Albanese came to power, Wells sits at number 28. Her family cost taxpayers $43,026 in that time whereas the top four family fliers in Parliament included two Labor ministers, Don Farrell (Trade) and Patrick Gorman (assistant minister to the PM). They charged taxpayers $116,306 and $112,866, respectively.
The next three after them are also ministers - one being the PM himself - each with north of $75,000 used for family reunion flights.
Michelle Rowland, currently the nation's "first law officer", spent $52,000. On Friday, she followed Wells in self-referring to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority for auditing. Who knows what is behind that?
Also on Friday, Albanese relented agreeing to seek advice from the IPEA. Acknowledgement from him, finally, that this is not going away.
Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute and host of the Democracy Sausage podcast.