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Speaker 1: Today's biggest news from The Australian. I'm christanamiot with the

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Speaker 1: Front's afternoon headlines. The taxpayer funded travel tally racked up

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Speaker 1: by Communications Minister Arnika Wells just keeps growing. The Australian

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Speaker 1: revealed on Monday Wells build taxpayers more than nine thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars for members of her family to attend three consecutive

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Speaker 1: AFL Grand Finals. Data from the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority

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Speaker 1: shows the cash went towards return flights for Wells's husband

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Speaker 1: Finn McCarthy, who attended the twenty twenty two, twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: three and twenty twenty four Grand Finals, with Wells and

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Speaker 1: her children who attended on one occasion. That's in addition

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Speaker 1: to travel to the twenty twenty four Melbourne Grand Prix,

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Speaker 1: two boxing day test matches at the Melbourne Cricket Ground

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Speaker 1: and a family trip to the Threadboath Ski Resort in June.

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Speaker 1: Plus in her capacity as Sports Minister, Wells took three

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Speaker 1: trips to Paris for the Rugby World Cup, Olympics and

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Speaker 1: Paralympic Games, and traveled to Switzerland for meetings of the

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Speaker 1: International Olympics Committee last week. It was revealed the now

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Speaker 1: Communications Minister charged taxpayers one hundred thousand dollars, including pricey

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Speaker 1: return flights, to spook the government's social media band at

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Speaker 1: the United Nations in New York in September. That last

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Speaker 1: minute booking was made because the deadly Optis triple zero

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Speaker 1: outage meant Wells couldn't leave the country as originally planned.

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Speaker 1: Wells told Sky News she can't help the timing, but

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Speaker 1: said it was important for her to travel to New

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Speaker 1: York at the earliest opportunity. People can have an opinion

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Speaker 1: about whether it was worth the money, but for me,

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Speaker 1: the policy imperative that the life changing work that we

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Speaker 1: are trying to do, it really was important. I'll stand

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Speaker 1: by it. Prime Minister Anthony Albanizi has backed Wells, saying

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Speaker 1: he authorized the thirty four thousand dollar flights, so you

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Speaker 1: did approve this.

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Speaker 2: Of course.

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Speaker 3: What happened was I was traveling, We spoke on the

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Speaker 3: Friday night, we spoke again on the set day morning

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Speaker 3: before I departed and made the decision that Minister Wells

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Speaker 3: would stay.

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Speaker 1: Social Services Minister Tanya Plibasik also defended Wells, telling Sunrise

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Speaker 1: a minister's job isn't nine to five, but Liberal Senator

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Speaker 1: Jane Hume says Wells's taxpayer funded expenses should be independently reviewed.

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Speaker 1: Hume acknowledged Wells's travel expenses for within the parliamentary rules

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Speaker 1: on Sky News, but said they don't meet community expectations

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Speaker 1: during a cost of living crisis.

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Speaker 2: The idea that you can game the rules that exist

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Speaker 2: to advantage you doesn't really sit comfortably with the general

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Speaker 2: public and indeed with Anaka Wells's colleagues too. There is

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Speaker 2: an off ramp here for Anaka Wells. She could have

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Speaker 2: a full review of her travel expenses as a minister

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Speaker 2: done by ip IPIA is the independent Parliamentary Expenses authority.

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Speaker 1: Under family reunion entitlements, federal MPs can claim as many

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Speaker 1: as three returned business class flights per year for family

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Speaker 1: members provided their traveling from the MP's electorate to somewhere

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Speaker 1: other than Canberra. Wells said she's happy for her entitlements

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Speaker 1: to be scrutinized, but Simon Benson writes for The Australian

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Speaker 1: her spending doesn't pass the pub test. Check out that

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Speaker 1: developing story right now at The Australian dot com dot

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Speaker 1: au and come back to the front, first thing in

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Speaker 1: the morning,