December 11, 2025 • 26 mins
Today, we're delving into the expenses scandal, if indeed we are calling it a scandal, that has engulfed the Communications Minister Anika Wells. A $100,000 taxpayer funded flight to New York snow-balled into a drip-feed of information about flights to the Formula 1 grand prix, the Boxing Day tests and even a family reunion at Thredbo. All of this dropping at precisely the moment the minister wanted to be talking about the social media ban that was instituted this week.
So, what are the rules around taxpayer-funded travel for MPs? And do the pass the 'pub test'?
Joining host Jacqueline Maley is chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal, and chief political commentator James Massola.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, December 12th,
and joining me from Canberra. We have our chief political
correspondent Paul Sakala as usual, and our chief political commentator
James Massola. Welcome, gents.
S2 (00:18):
Hello. Thanks, Jack.
S1 (00:19):
Today we're going to go over the expenses scandal, if
indeed we are calling it a scandal that has engulfed
the Communications Minister, Anika Wells, at precisely the moment when
she wanted to be talking about the social media ban
that was instituted this week. James, you've reported on all
the expenses stories for us, and it's starting to look
a lot like these. Anika Wells expenses have been raked
over by, say, the Liberal Party dirt unit or other
(00:41):
parties and then rolled out one by one to embarrass
the minister at this pivotal moment. Would you care to
comment on that without revealing your sources? Of course.
S3 (00:50):
Can we talk about how the sausage is made, or
do we keep that? Do we keep that hidden?
S1 (00:53):
I think that's I think that's important in this story.
S4 (00:57):
Jackie. You're definitely correct that some of the information that
was being sourced from publicly available information, that it was
being circulated by the opposition. Right. They've been a bit
of a rabble. Let's be frank, for the last six
months or so, and it's like they've finally woken up
and gone, oh, that's right. Our job is to hold
the government of the day to account, rather than tearing
(01:19):
each other to bits. Um, so some of it comes
from there. Some of it has come from government sources,
as in labour on labour violence, as in people who
for whatever reason are, you know, jealous of the minister
and sort of wanting to take a bit of paint off. Um,
you know, perhaps they want to be the next cab
(01:40):
off the rank in terms of promotion rather than seeing
her again. And then again, you know, some of this
material has been sourced either independently or even by third parties,
you know, sectoral interests who are, you know, disappointed with
the minister and how she's handled, one or other of
her portfolios. Anika Wells. Jackie, let's be really clear. Anika
(02:03):
Wells is a very talented minister. She's risen very quickly
through the ranks into cabinet, and she's made some enemies
along the way. So even before you begin to reflect
on her performance one way or another. Um, yeah. She's
got some enemies and and those enemies have relished this.
S1 (02:21):
It is a really dirty business. Yeah.
S3 (02:23):
I'm happy to give some insight in terms of what
what I understand about the genesis of some of the
information as well. I was talking to a couple of
people who were integral to the May election campaign on
the Liberal side this week, and these are people who
are no longer in the show but were senior at
the time, and they both asked me, why is this
all come up now? And how come you guys didn't
(02:44):
run any of this pre-election because this research had been
done in a very thorough way by the opposition and they're, uh,
you know, dirt file unit, to put it crudely, and
research unit to put it in a, in a more
euphemistic term before the election on Anika Wells, because there
was a perception that she was a big user of
entitlements and she was loved the glitz and the glamour.
(03:05):
And the difference is that when those when those, those
bits of information were shopped around pre-election, the Liberal Party
struggled to find a journalist interested to write them because
there was no spark, which set off the chain of
events that has created this scandal. That spark came last
week when, just before a Senate estimates hearing, which is
the last moment at which the government was mandated to
(03:27):
release this information, the information about her flights to New
York were revealed. It had that headline $100,000 number that
twigs people's minds. It creates a narrative, and then each
subsequent story fits into this narrative around one person. No
other bit of spending looks as egregious, even though new
examples emerge about other MPs. And so you get this
(03:50):
pressure build up on the one character.
S1 (03:53):
That's exactly what I was going to talk about is
the kind of the strange alchemy of what makes a
story a story at any given moment. And as you say,
it's the New York trip. And people immediately see New
York as being kind of glitzy, I guess, and the
$100,000 figure of the flights. And we discussed that last week.
But this week the caravan kind of moved on to
the family entitlement stuff, which probably a lot of voters
(04:13):
don't even really realize exists the family reunion entitlement. So, James,
can you just tell us how that works? And, you know,
so Anika Wells is publicly declared, and now it has
been extensively reported that she's used this entitlement to bring
her family, like her kids, to Thredbo for a work
thing she was doing there as sports minister. And because
she is sports minister, she's gone to a lot of
grand finals and stuff, and she's brought her husband with
(04:35):
her on the taxpayer dime.
S4 (04:37):
Yep. Okay, so I'll try and keep it as brief
as possible. Jax. Um, family entitlement rules. Partner of an
MP can fly from home based Sydney to Canberra up
to nine times a year, or the value of nine
business class flights, to be very specific. Children up to
(05:00):
three return flights from home base to Canberra, and then
after that, three more business class flights from home base
to city. That is not Canberra. Now, those are the
sort of broad parameters. There are exceptions that can be
made for ministers which allow extra flights, but that's it
(05:21):
in a nutshell. So family entitlement rules exist to allow
MPs who work very hard, like Minister Wells, for example,
you know, three young kids, um, all of that, they
allow MPs to try and maintain some kind of normalcy,
I guess. Jacqui. Yeah. Um.
S1 (05:39):
Maybe maybe to stay married as well. I mean.
S4 (05:42):
Exactly, exactly. Um, there's a joke that does the rounds
amongst MPs. You know, there's not four status levels of
frequent flyer. There's actually five. It's like, uh, I think
red silver. Gold. Platinum. Divorced. Yeah, right. It's a bit
of a gallows humour, but it's a good example.
S3 (06:01):
In one of the, uh, MPs inductions, uh, meetings where
they get former parliamentarians to talk to new MPs. They
used to do this thing where they'd say, look to
the two people around you, two out of three of you,
at the end of your time in Parliament won't have
the partner that you're with. Um, so it's something they're
all very aware of. But I just want to go
(06:23):
to this point, James, people have been defending these travel
reunion entitlements this week on this basis that they're important
to keep families together and to encourage younger parents into Parliament.
And I totally understand that. But I think most MPs
understand the spirit of these rules or the essence of
these rules, to be kind of as follows, that if
you spend a week in Canberra, for example, and then
(06:44):
you have a committee hearing in Tasmania and you have
to go back to Canberra on Monday, but your family's
in Brisbane. You can pay to bring the family to Tasmania.
Spend the weekend with you, see the MP for a bit,
then go back home. You go to Canberra. But as
this week has gone on and the Australian has done
some good work on Thursday The Australian newspaper, in terms
of tallying up Don Farrell and Sarah Hanson-young's use of
(07:07):
family reunion rules, Sarah Hanson-Young appears to have used family
reunion entitlements to allow her husband, who's a lobbyist in Canberra,
Ben Oquist, who a lot of people, a lot of
journalists know, good operator 78 times since 2022, and Don
Farrell has brought his wife on 136 flights, the equivalent
of 3.7 movements around the globe in that same time frame,
(07:30):
tallying up to more than $200,000 between the two. And
there's a story in The Guardian which says that those
restrictions or those limits that you referenced before, James, about
nine business class flights apparently don't exist for ministers and
other senior office holders. So effectively, these family reunion rules
can be used as much as possible, which means that
an MP can bring their spouse on the taxpayer dime
(07:52):
wherever they go, whenever, as many times as possible. Now,
that might keep families together, but it. I'm not sure
that I know we talk a lot about the pub test,
but that seems like yeah, this is information we didn't know.
And I don't think people realize that these entitlements were
being used to this extent.
S1 (08:11):
I mean, I'm inclined to agree with you. And I
think that, you know, just because you have an entitlement
doesn't mean that you should necessarily stretch the stretch the
limits of entitlement, but it is what it says on
the tin. It's an entitlement, and they're taking what they're
entitled to. Right. And people are going to use whatever
they're entitled to within the rules. And as Albanese and
Anika Wills keep saying, she was within the rules, within
(08:32):
the rules, within the rules, she was singled out. But
I do, and I've spoken about this with a lot
of women that I know. Annabel Crabb wrote a really
good column about it on the ABC online about whether
or not there's a gender element in particular to Annika
Wells being singled out. She's a sports minister, so she
has to go to all these sporting events. If we
want to attract young women who have children, small children
(08:55):
and marriages that they presumably want to keep intact into
the ministry, then we've got to allow these arrangements and
these crazy jobs that they have to be a little
bit more family friendly.
S4 (09:06):
Jacqui, I agree with you up to a point, right?
I think Anika Wells is a super talent. I think
she'll recover from this in time. Uh, I think as
she gleefully predicted, it will be found by the EPA
that everything she's done, or just about everything she's done
is within entitlements. But that's the thing. And this goes
to Paul's point. Like, does this pass the pub test
(09:29):
or the kitchen table test or the common sense test
or whatever? And I don't believe it does. If you
look at her travel to the 50th birthday of the
former Victorian MP Peter Murphy, that's the one that really
sticks with me. So Anika Wells flies from Brisbane to
Melbourne to go to the birthday party, which was also
(09:52):
a living wake for a woman who died three weeks later. Right.
She went to Saint Kilda Beach on the Saturday and
and made a minor announcement at a surf club on
the Sunday she went to a an aged care home.
So she was working.
S1 (10:10):
She did some work engagements.
S4 (10:11):
She posted a couple of things on her Instagram. One
of them said, I'm helping some people, some older people,
and I'm quoting with their puzzle.
S1 (10:19):
So she was. But she's the aged care minister. She was.
It was she was in she was within. She was
within her capacity as a minister. She didn't go as
a private citizen.
S4 (10:29):
No. Sure that's correct. But Tanya Plibersek, Alicia Payne and
Mario Smith didn't see fit to charge taxpayers to go
to the same birthday. Right. And they didn't post a
couple of things like Instagram to cover their backsides.
S1 (10:40):
And maybe, maybe I am looking at this through two
gender lens. But I just think about all the egregious
stuff that male politicians have done over the years. And
you want to talk about the pub test? I don't
know which pubs you're drinking in, but you know, and
Annabelle makes this point really well in her column because
she sort of compares it to Barnaby Joyce, who's, you know,
(11:00):
had many crimes against decent behaviour over the years. You know.
S4 (11:04):
No arguments here. Yes.
S1 (11:05):
Yeah. So I mean, I do think that there is
there is a sort of family gender. Like do we
want women of, you know, who've got young families in politics?
There is that element to it. But I mean, Paul,
what do you think? I mean, what's your sort of
view on the balance between I mean, there are difficult
jobs that involve a lot of travel, a lot of
time away from home. Are we just being super mean
about this stuff?
S3 (11:26):
Yeah, I think that to me, if I, if I
was trying to identify where the gendered element to this
debate is emerging to me, I see it in the
way some of her colleagues and people on the in
the opposition are revelling in the criticism of her. She's
seen as someone who's been promoted above her station by
(11:46):
her critics. She presents really well. She's super confident, super ambitious,
and there are many men in the Labour Party who
share all of those traits. There aren't quite as many women,
and I think she cops an outsized level of focus
because of that. Now, having said that, I think part
of the reason why people like Jim Chalmers, who is
(12:07):
is close to Minister Wells, has not been super firm
in his defence of her. And really, none of her
colleagues have really wanted to defend the nitty gritty of
what she's done. And the reason for that is she.
If you take the critical view of how she's acted,
has used every kind of trick in the book on entitlements.
She's gone to Adelaide to go to a friend's birthday
(12:28):
party and kind of created a diary of work around it.
She's left Comcast for ten hours outside events. She's systemically
brought her partner to the most high profile fun sporting
engagements year after year. Now there is an argument the
Sports minister should have their partner there.
S1 (12:46):
How many blokes do you think have brought their wives
to the cricket and the tennis and what have you
over the years?
S4 (12:50):
I've actually called around about this and they didn't like
previous sports ministers, many of whom, but not all of
whom are blokes. Don't. They just don't.
S3 (13:00):
Don Farrell is clearly. Does it as trade minister. Yes.
And Anika Wells clearly does it. But I've spoken.
S4 (13:05):
To him about Greg Hunt, Richard Colbeck, Bridget McKenzie.
S3 (13:09):
Yeah. And speaking to some of Anika's Minister Wells colleagues
this week, even some of her, her friends who really
have been, you know, dealing with her every day, even
those people say, look, if she had her time again
and applied the front page test on some of these,
this spending, which is that would you want this on
the front page of the paper? She won't make these
(13:31):
decisions again.
S1 (13:31):
And that and that is really pivotal. And I think
it's probably been a big wake up call to probably
everyone in Parliament. And I bet you, you know, the
opposition is is the same. They're getting talkings to about
how to be careful. It's like as journalists I, you know,
you have the rule of don't put anything in a
text message you wouldn't want pinned to an affidavit. Right?
And they.
S3 (13:49):
Need.
S1 (13:49):
Yeah.
S3 (13:50):
I had a senior liberal message me yesterday saying I'm
really stunned that the government hasn't found better examples of
some of my colleagues use of entitlements, because there are
some outrageous ones and they're all sitting there in secret.
S1 (14:01):
And this is the thing, right? It becomes a.
S4 (14:04):
Secret. Hiding in plain sight.
S3 (14:05):
Hiding in plain sight.
S1 (14:06):
It's mutually assured destruction whenever they start talking about this.
So it is really interesting to see the different reactions,
because I think they all know that there are skeletons
in their closet or their own sort of side that
they don't want exposed on the front page of papers.
S4 (14:20):
Jeff, you've been around as long as I have, right?
Give or take a couple of years as a journalist.
And no disrespect to Paul, but he's slightly younger than us.
S1 (14:29):
Um, I, I think it's an insult to our. Sorry. Yeah.
Go on.
S3 (14:35):
No, that's. I'll. I'll let that one go through to
the keeper.
S4 (14:38):
Yeah. Yeah.
S3 (14:39):
And it's a fact.
S4 (14:40):
In quite.
S3 (14:41):
A ways. No, no, no.
S4 (14:41):
You're fine. You recall that Susan Lee got tripped up
by entitlements, uh, in 2017. But think back a little
further to 2013. The Abbott government's just been elected. Tony
Abbott's talking all about how he wants to slow down
politics and get back to a more stable, normal age.
(15:02):
Former colleague of ours, Catherine Murphy, wrote a great essay
in The Guardian at the time, saying this is exactly
what Tony Abbott should be doing and good on him
and all this sort of stuff. You'd remember Jonathan Swan,
who's now a correspondent for The New York Times, but
at the time was a young, up and coming journalist,
beloved colleague.
S1 (15:18):
And now he's very, very famous in the United.
S4 (15:21):
States, extremely, terrifyingly famous. He starts breaking a series of
stories about entitlements. Right. Um, this is straight after the
2013 election. So October, September. October 2013. about MPs going
on six week study tours in the bicycle lanes of,
you know, Holland and and what have you like people absolutely.
(15:44):
Taking the piss right. My point is this about every
10 to 15 years, these, uh, entitlements end up getting
a bunch of MPs in trouble. And that's what's happening now.
It's metastasizing. It's not just Anika Wells anymore. Although her
use of entitlements is, uh. How how would I put it?
(16:06):
She's used them to the nth degree. Like, she's made
sure that she's claimed every single little small thing. And
that's what happened in 2013 as well, right? These there
were like these MPs back then. They weren't using entitlements
outside the rules. They were using them to their maximum.
S3 (16:22):
And Wells Wells has become unfortunately for her, she's become
the breakout example that sticks in the public's mind. I've
been looking at some of the social media stats, um,
a video that the Financial Review put up of her
press club performance last week, has 1.5 million views. I've
had friends who are school friends who laugh at my
job and think politics is is dumb. Contact me and
(16:44):
just say, what's this all about? This is it's outrageous.
It's totally cut through. It's totally cut through.
S1 (16:49):
And unfortunately.
S3 (16:51):
And there's no nuance and there's no nuance in that debate.
But that's how things go.
S1 (16:55):
And James is right. Like you're in politics for a while.
You see these things kind of break out like a
little grass fire every now and then, and you never
know who it's going to engulf, which is always propagate.
S4 (17:04):
2015 is another example.
S1 (17:06):
Yeah. Yeah. Well that's right. And what do people remember
about Bronwyn Bishop? Not her long and storied career in politics,
when she was talked about as a potential leader of
the opposition, at one point they remember her chartering a
chopper to take her. How long was the flight? Like
30 minutes.
S4 (17:21):
Oh, it was like.
S1 (17:21):
It was like Melbourne to Bendigo or something.
S4 (17:23):
25 minutes in a helicopter. I've never taken it. I
assume it's 25 minutes in a helicopter. Like most people,
I've only ever driven it.
S3 (17:32):
Um, I thought, um, just just on Wells and how
she's become the vehicle for all of this, um, grievance
out there in the community, which is in some ways
unfair to her. But she made this one comment, which
I don't think was picked up. I think it was
on Wednesday in a press conference she did just before
meeting with the Prime Minister at Kirribilli House for the
social media event. And I think it's another one of
(17:52):
those comments she would take back if she had her
time again. She said, you know, I understand people out
there don't have much time for the political class and
don't give us much breathing room. I mean, that is
a really tone deaf comment to me. Firstly, to even yeah,
I think to even acknowledge that you're in a class
is not it's not a it's not a smart way
to speak about the issue. But if you do have
(18:13):
the consciousness that you are perceived, you're perceived with a
level of unfairness. Then you should be much more judicious
about the way you go about your decision making.
S1 (18:21):
It's very hard, I think, and politicians almost always get
this wrong. In my view, it's very hard to show
contrition and to take accountability for a situation without being
seen to back down. And, you know, their egos get engaged.
And and I think that's probably what's happened here. It
is interesting obviously, James referred to this before that Annika
(18:41):
Wells has sort of sought to draw a line under
all this stuff, if you like, by referring all of
her expenses and all of her use of entitlements to
the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, which is the body that
oversees this stuff. She's the only politician to have done so.
It remains to be seen whether people, you know, journalists
will keep trawling through this stuff and maybe find more
egregious examples from the other side of the aisle, perhaps even.
(19:02):
But Albanese, his stance has been to firmly back his minister. Right, Paul?
S3 (19:06):
Yeah. Well, I was going to make that point. I mean,
the the referral to EPR is not a fronting up
quickly when the party has identified a problem to take
it seriously. Referring to Ipea is a way to cauterize
the issue in the in the medium term to just
dampen some of the criticism. It was done on the
(19:27):
afternoon before the social media ban so that the minister
could meet with the Prime Minister the next day and
have as a talking point that IP will look at
this so they could move on to talking about their policy.
There hasn't been at any point, an acknowledgement from the
Prime Minister or Minister Wells that some of this spending
might have been poor judgment, and the Prime Minister is
not he's really the key decision maker here, not the minister.
(19:48):
There's been no acknowledgement from the Prime Minister that these
family reunion entitlements might need to be looked at. And
that's in part driven by his determination to not be seen,
to be giving in, not be seen, to have a
cabinet scandal that might result in the removal of one
of his ministers, because that would diminish the sense that
he runs a stable cabinet government that has not lost
(20:10):
a minister in his term of term in office, which
he's very proud of. And so the government strategy will
be to muddy up the opposition to the greatest extent possible,
hope that Christmas comes and we all forget about it.
Hope that EPA comes back with not too strong a
finding about Minister Wells and that this all simmers down.
S1 (20:26):
So you think I mean, there is a there are
some people saying that these rules, in particular the family
reunion entitlements should be reviewed and the PM saying, no,
I'm not going to do that. I don't see anyone
on the other side of politics lobbying for it. Are
they going to make that an election pledge?
S3 (20:41):
Well, Melissa McIntosh and Simon Kennedy are the only two,
as far as I can tell, major party MPs who've
said these rules are no good and we need to
have a look at them.
S1 (20:48):
Okay.
S4 (20:49):
Yeah, I don't think I don't think they will, Jack.
S1 (20:51):
Okay. Yeah. I mean, this is this is the thing is, um,
I think there is there is probably a bipartisan agreement
or understanding that these jobs are hard on, you know,
they all believe that these jobs are hard on the family.
They're hard on marriages. They're hard on your relationship with
your kids. And you want to kind of leave that
stuff alone.
S4 (21:07):
Jacqui, you made that point earlier. You make it now.
You made it earlier. You're right. These are tough jobs.
Politicians do work really hard, you know. Yes, they're well paid,
but they deserve to be well paid. And if they
were in the private sector as a CEO, they, you know,
quite likely a lot of them would be on $1.5
million a year, not $300,000 a year or 240 or 400.
(21:28):
But to some extent we do, you know, I mean,
you do get what you pay for, and there should
be entitlements to get people like Anika Wells into Parliament.
Because I will say it again, she's a very talented minister, right?
She's a young woman or relatively young woman. And I
don't mean that in a condescending way. She's got three kids. Um,
you know, we want people like that in Parliament. That's great.
(21:50):
But that does not mean necessarily that she should be
claiming some of these expenses, like the two things can
exist and both be true simultaneously. Some of these expenses
don't pass the pub test.
S3 (22:03):
There's a strong argument and some MPs make this in private.
They would never make it in public that if MPs
were all paid more, you wouldn't need these entitlements. You
wouldn't need this arcane bureaucratic system which costs a lot
of money to administrate and which, when revealed, makes all
politicians look like they've got their snouts in the trough,
because there's all these little tricks they can use. If
they were paid at a higher rate, they could fund
(22:24):
some of this themselves. And we wouldn't need to go
through this rigmarole. But it's a brave politician who says
we should be paid more.
S1 (22:30):
Yeah, exactly.
S4 (22:31):
Paul, I have to interrupt you there for a moment.
They'll come up. Um, Anika Wells is on about $400,000
a year as a cabinet minister.
S3 (22:38):
But most, most politicians are on 215 grand a year.
S4 (22:42):
Ago. 240. And look, are you seriously telling me that
a person on $400,000 a year can't afford to fly
his or her husband or wife or partner down from
Brisbane to Melbourne and then back? We're talking about an
$800 flight. And you're right, I can't afford that. That's
what she's I mean, that's what the family reunions are.
(23:04):
This is the Boxing Day.
S3 (23:05):
She could.
S4 (23:05):
She.
S3 (23:06):
Could.
S4 (23:06):
Fund it. Of course she can afford it.
S3 (23:08):
But James, as as, you know, like there are journalists
on approximately the salary of backbenchers, they all still have
big mortgages. They all still have expenses. And if there
is an if there is an ability to get a
freebie for your partner and you're on 250 grand a year,
you probably try and take it. Yeah. And you're only.
You're only in politics for a certain. Well, they do,
(23:28):
but they entitlement.
S1 (23:30):
As I said before, an entitlement is entitlement. So they're
not doing anything wrong by using their entitlements. They're literally
entitled to them. But it's a very, very controversial issue.
And I think most people aren't earning that amount of money.
And they do see politicians as being, you know, they're
more likely to see politicians as being self-interested. And also,
the stuff that Anika Wells is doing is kind of
(23:51):
fun stuff. I think that's that's key as well. She's
not she's not bringing her kids to Canberra to, like,
trudge around questacon like the rest of us do. Not
giving away my.
S4 (24:00):
I won't hear a bad word against Questacon Jackie. It's
it's nothing wrong with it, but it's not. Skiing at
Thredbo is terrific.
S3 (24:07):
Yeah, the the cut through here comes from the events
that Minister Wells has to go to. Yeah, I was
speaking to a former sports minister who said that. Yeah,
they did like to bring their partners to events, because
if you go to the grand final of NRL or AFL,
Gillon McLachlan or Sir Andrew Dillon, now the CEO or
Andrew Abdo at NRL or Peter V'landys, they all have
their partners there too. So you look like you're out
(24:29):
of school if you don't have yours.
S1 (24:31):
So it would be a little bit lonely and awkward.
I mean, they're people, right? Nobody wants to turn up
to these kinds of things. Stag. I get it personally.
And I think they want they want to stay married.
So they're like, you know, honey, why don't you come
down from Brisbane this weekend and we can spend some
time together, even though I have to go to this
work event? I get it.
S4 (24:46):
But, you know, once or twice, Jackie, but every grand
final for the NRL, the AFL, the Formula One.
S1 (24:53):
I think we're I think we're never going to solve
this argument. All that we can agree upon is that
taking your kids to Questacon in Canberra on the holidays
is a great family, fun, adventure, and very cost of
living friendly.
S4 (25:06):
Yeah. No, no, it's it's it's a terrible idea and
it's a recipe for a giant headache. And I can
say that as a father of three young children, they
have fun. We get the headache.
S1 (25:16):
Yeah, yeah. Um, anyway, see you at questacon over the summer.
We will of course be recording next week. James, thanks
so much for coming on. It was a very lively
debate with you, as always.
S4 (25:27):
Yeah. Pleasure.
S3 (25:28):
Thanks, guys.
S1 (25:36):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with technical assistance
from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. And
special thanks to Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. To listen
to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow Inside
Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to
your podcasts. To stay up to date with all the politics,
(25:56):
news and exclusives, visit The Age or The Sydney Morning
Herald websites. And to support our journalism, subscribe to us
by visiting The Age or. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank
you for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, December 12th,
and joining me from Canberra. We have our chief political
correspondent Paul Sakala as usual, and our chief political commentator
James Massola. Welcome, gents.
S2 (00:18):
Hello. Thanks, Jack.
S1 (00:19):
Today we're going to go over the expenses scandal, if
indeed we are calling it a scandal that has engulfed
the Communications Minister, Anika Wells, at precisely the moment when
she wanted to be talking about the social media ban
that was instituted this week. James, you've reported on all
the expenses stories for us, and it's starting to look
a lot like these. Anika Wells expenses have been raked
over by, say, the Liberal Party dirt unit or other
(00:41):
parties and then rolled out one by one to embarrass
the minister at this pivotal moment. Would you care to
comment on that without revealing your sources? Of course.
S3 (00:50):
Can we talk about how the sausage is made, or
do we keep that? Do we keep that hidden?
S1 (00:53):
I think that's I think that's important in this story.
S4 (00:57):
Jackie. You're definitely correct that some of the information that
was being sourced from publicly available information, that it was
being circulated by the opposition. Right. They've been a bit
of a rabble. Let's be frank, for the last six
months or so, and it's like they've finally woken up
and gone, oh, that's right. Our job is to hold
the government of the day to account, rather than tearing
(01:19):
each other to bits. Um, so some of it comes
from there. Some of it has come from government sources,
as in labour on labour violence, as in people who
for whatever reason are, you know, jealous of the minister
and sort of wanting to take a bit of paint off. Um,
you know, perhaps they want to be the next cab
(01:40):
off the rank in terms of promotion rather than seeing
her again. And then again, you know, some of this
material has been sourced either independently or even by third parties,
you know, sectoral interests who are, you know, disappointed with
the minister and how she's handled, one or other of
her portfolios. Anika Wells. Jackie, let's be really clear. Anika
(02:03):
Wells is a very talented minister. She's risen very quickly
through the ranks into cabinet, and she's made some enemies
along the way. So even before you begin to reflect
on her performance one way or another. Um, yeah. She's
got some enemies and and those enemies have relished this.
S1 (02:21):
It is a really dirty business. Yeah.
S3 (02:23):
I'm happy to give some insight in terms of what
what I understand about the genesis of some of the
information as well. I was talking to a couple of
people who were integral to the May election campaign on
the Liberal side this week, and these are people who
are no longer in the show but were senior at
the time, and they both asked me, why is this
all come up now? And how come you guys didn't
(02:44):
run any of this pre-election because this research had been
done in a very thorough way by the opposition and they're, uh,
you know, dirt file unit, to put it crudely, and
research unit to put it in a, in a more
euphemistic term before the election on Anika Wells, because there
was a perception that she was a big user of
entitlements and she was loved the glitz and the glamour.
(03:05):
And the difference is that when those when those, those
bits of information were shopped around pre-election, the Liberal Party
struggled to find a journalist interested to write them because
there was no spark, which set off the chain of
events that has created this scandal. That spark came last
week when, just before a Senate estimates hearing, which is
the last moment at which the government was mandated to
(03:27):
release this information, the information about her flights to New
York were revealed. It had that headline $100,000 number that
twigs people's minds. It creates a narrative, and then each
subsequent story fits into this narrative around one person. No
other bit of spending looks as egregious, even though new
examples emerge about other MPs. And so you get this
(03:50):
pressure build up on the one character.
S1 (03:53):
That's exactly what I was going to talk about is
the kind of the strange alchemy of what makes a
story a story at any given moment. And as you say,
it's the New York trip. And people immediately see New
York as being kind of glitzy, I guess, and the
$100,000 figure of the flights. And we discussed that last week.
But this week the caravan kind of moved on to
the family entitlement stuff, which probably a lot of voters
(04:13):
don't even really realize exists the family reunion entitlement. So, James,
can you just tell us how that works? And, you know,
so Anika Wells is publicly declared, and now it has
been extensively reported that she's used this entitlement to bring
her family, like her kids, to Thredbo for a work
thing she was doing there as sports minister. And because
she is sports minister, she's gone to a lot of
grand finals and stuff, and she's brought her husband with
(04:35):
her on the taxpayer dime.
S4 (04:37):
Yep. Okay, so I'll try and keep it as brief
as possible. Jax. Um, family entitlement rules. Partner of an
MP can fly from home based Sydney to Canberra up
to nine times a year, or the value of nine
business class flights, to be very specific. Children up to
(05:00):
three return flights from home base to Canberra, and then
after that, three more business class flights from home base
to city. That is not Canberra. Now, those are the
sort of broad parameters. There are exceptions that can be
made for ministers which allow extra flights, but that's it
(05:21):
in a nutshell. So family entitlement rules exist to allow
MPs who work very hard, like Minister Wells, for example,
you know, three young kids, um, all of that, they
allow MPs to try and maintain some kind of normalcy,
I guess. Jacqui. Yeah. Um.
S1 (05:39):
Maybe maybe to stay married as well. I mean.
S4 (05:42):
Exactly, exactly. Um, there's a joke that does the rounds
amongst MPs. You know, there's not four status levels of
frequent flyer. There's actually five. It's like, uh, I think
red silver. Gold. Platinum. Divorced. Yeah, right. It's a bit
of a gallows humour, but it's a good example.
S3 (06:01):
In one of the, uh, MPs inductions, uh, meetings where
they get former parliamentarians to talk to new MPs. They
used to do this thing where they'd say, look to
the two people around you, two out of three of you,
at the end of your time in Parliament won't have
the partner that you're with. Um, so it's something they're
all very aware of. But I just want to go
(06:23):
to this point, James, people have been defending these travel
reunion entitlements this week on this basis that they're important
to keep families together and to encourage younger parents into Parliament.
And I totally understand that. But I think most MPs
understand the spirit of these rules or the essence of
these rules, to be kind of as follows, that if
you spend a week in Canberra, for example, and then
(06:44):
you have a committee hearing in Tasmania and you have
to go back to Canberra on Monday, but your family's
in Brisbane. You can pay to bring the family to Tasmania.
Spend the weekend with you, see the MP for a bit,
then go back home. You go to Canberra. But as
this week has gone on and the Australian has done
some good work on Thursday The Australian newspaper, in terms
of tallying up Don Farrell and Sarah Hanson-young's use of
(07:07):
family reunion rules, Sarah Hanson-Young appears to have used family
reunion entitlements to allow her husband, who's a lobbyist in Canberra,
Ben Oquist, who a lot of people, a lot of
journalists know, good operator 78 times since 2022, and Don
Farrell has brought his wife on 136 flights, the equivalent
of 3.7 movements around the globe in that same time frame,
(07:30):
tallying up to more than $200,000 between the two. And
there's a story in The Guardian which says that those
restrictions or those limits that you referenced before, James, about
nine business class flights apparently don't exist for ministers and
other senior office holders. So effectively, these family reunion rules
can be used as much as possible, which means that
an MP can bring their spouse on the taxpayer dime
(07:52):
wherever they go, whenever, as many times as possible. Now,
that might keep families together, but it. I'm not sure
that I know we talk a lot about the pub test,
but that seems like yeah, this is information we didn't know.
And I don't think people realize that these entitlements were
being used to this extent.
S1 (08:11):
I mean, I'm inclined to agree with you. And I
think that, you know, just because you have an entitlement
doesn't mean that you should necessarily stretch the stretch the
limits of entitlement, but it is what it says on
the tin. It's an entitlement, and they're taking what they're
entitled to. Right. And people are going to use whatever
they're entitled to within the rules. And as Albanese and
Anika Wills keep saying, she was within the rules, within
(08:32):
the rules, within the rules, she was singled out. But
I do, and I've spoken about this with a lot
of women that I know. Annabel Crabb wrote a really
good column about it on the ABC online about whether
or not there's a gender element in particular to Annika
Wells being singled out. She's a sports minister, so she
has to go to all these sporting events. If we
want to attract young women who have children, small children
(08:55):
and marriages that they presumably want to keep intact into
the ministry, then we've got to allow these arrangements and
these crazy jobs that they have to be a little
bit more family friendly.
S4 (09:06):
Jacqui, I agree with you up to a point, right?
I think Anika Wells is a super talent. I think
she'll recover from this in time. Uh, I think as
she gleefully predicted, it will be found by the EPA
that everything she's done, or just about everything she's done
is within entitlements. But that's the thing. And this goes
to Paul's point. Like, does this pass the pub test
(09:29):
or the kitchen table test or the common sense test
or whatever? And I don't believe it does. If you
look at her travel to the 50th birthday of the
former Victorian MP Peter Murphy, that's the one that really
sticks with me. So Anika Wells flies from Brisbane to
Melbourne to go to the birthday party, which was also
(09:52):
a living wake for a woman who died three weeks later. Right.
She went to Saint Kilda Beach on the Saturday and
and made a minor announcement at a surf club on
the Sunday she went to a an aged care home.
So she was working.
S1 (10:10):
She did some work engagements.
S4 (10:11):
She posted a couple of things on her Instagram. One
of them said, I'm helping some people, some older people,
and I'm quoting with their puzzle.
S1 (10:19):
So she was. But she's the aged care minister. She was.
It was she was in she was within. She was
within her capacity as a minister. She didn't go as
a private citizen.
S4 (10:29):
No. Sure that's correct. But Tanya Plibersek, Alicia Payne and
Mario Smith didn't see fit to charge taxpayers to go
to the same birthday. Right. And they didn't post a
couple of things like Instagram to cover their backsides.
S1 (10:40):
And maybe, maybe I am looking at this through two
gender lens. But I just think about all the egregious
stuff that male politicians have done over the years. And
you want to talk about the pub test? I don't
know which pubs you're drinking in, but you know, and
Annabelle makes this point really well in her column because
she sort of compares it to Barnaby Joyce, who's, you know,
(11:00):
had many crimes against decent behaviour over the years. You know.
S4 (11:04):
No arguments here. Yes.
S1 (11:05):
Yeah. So I mean, I do think that there is
there is a sort of family gender. Like do we
want women of, you know, who've got young families in politics?
There is that element to it. But I mean, Paul,
what do you think? I mean, what's your sort of
view on the balance between I mean, there are difficult
jobs that involve a lot of travel, a lot of
time away from home. Are we just being super mean
about this stuff?
S3 (11:26):
Yeah, I think that to me, if I, if I
was trying to identify where the gendered element to this
debate is emerging to me, I see it in the
way some of her colleagues and people on the in
the opposition are revelling in the criticism of her. She's
seen as someone who's been promoted above her station by
(11:46):
her critics. She presents really well. She's super confident, super ambitious,
and there are many men in the Labour Party who
share all of those traits. There aren't quite as many women,
and I think she cops an outsized level of focus
because of that. Now, having said that, I think part
of the reason why people like Jim Chalmers, who is
(12:07):
is close to Minister Wells, has not been super firm
in his defence of her. And really, none of her
colleagues have really wanted to defend the nitty gritty of
what she's done. And the reason for that is she.
If you take the critical view of how she's acted,
has used every kind of trick in the book on entitlements.
She's gone to Adelaide to go to a friend's birthday
(12:28):
party and kind of created a diary of work around it.
She's left Comcast for ten hours outside events. She's systemically
brought her partner to the most high profile fun sporting
engagements year after year. Now there is an argument the
Sports minister should have their partner there.
S1 (12:46):
How many blokes do you think have brought their wives
to the cricket and the tennis and what have you
over the years?
S4 (12:50):
I've actually called around about this and they didn't like
previous sports ministers, many of whom, but not all of
whom are blokes. Don't. They just don't.
S3 (13:00):
Don Farrell is clearly. Does it as trade minister. Yes.
And Anika Wells clearly does it. But I've spoken.
S4 (13:05):
To him about Greg Hunt, Richard Colbeck, Bridget McKenzie.
S3 (13:09):
Yeah. And speaking to some of Anika's Minister Wells colleagues
this week, even some of her, her friends who really
have been, you know, dealing with her every day, even
those people say, look, if she had her time again
and applied the front page test on some of these,
this spending, which is that would you want this on
the front page of the paper? She won't make these
(13:31):
decisions again.
S1 (13:31):
And that and that is really pivotal. And I think
it's probably been a big wake up call to probably
everyone in Parliament. And I bet you, you know, the
opposition is is the same. They're getting talkings to about
how to be careful. It's like as journalists I, you know,
you have the rule of don't put anything in a
text message you wouldn't want pinned to an affidavit. Right?
And they.
S3 (13:49):
Need.
S1 (13:49):
Yeah.
S3 (13:50):
I had a senior liberal message me yesterday saying I'm
really stunned that the government hasn't found better examples of
some of my colleagues use of entitlements, because there are
some outrageous ones and they're all sitting there in secret.
S1 (14:01):
And this is the thing, right? It becomes a.
S4 (14:04):
Secret. Hiding in plain sight.
S3 (14:05):
Hiding in plain sight.
S1 (14:06):
It's mutually assured destruction whenever they start talking about this.
So it is really interesting to see the different reactions,
because I think they all know that there are skeletons
in their closet or their own sort of side that
they don't want exposed on the front page of papers.
S4 (14:20):
Jeff, you've been around as long as I have, right?
Give or take a couple of years as a journalist.
And no disrespect to Paul, but he's slightly younger than us.
S1 (14:29):
Um, I, I think it's an insult to our. Sorry. Yeah.
Go on.
S3 (14:35):
No, that's. I'll. I'll let that one go through to
the keeper.
S4 (14:38):
Yeah. Yeah.
S3 (14:39):
And it's a fact.
S4 (14:40):
In quite.
S3 (14:41):
A ways. No, no, no.
S4 (14:41):
You're fine. You recall that Susan Lee got tripped up
by entitlements, uh, in 2017. But think back a little
further to 2013. The Abbott government's just been elected. Tony
Abbott's talking all about how he wants to slow down
politics and get back to a more stable, normal age.
(15:02):
Former colleague of ours, Catherine Murphy, wrote a great essay
in The Guardian at the time, saying this is exactly
what Tony Abbott should be doing and good on him
and all this sort of stuff. You'd remember Jonathan Swan,
who's now a correspondent for The New York Times, but
at the time was a young, up and coming journalist,
beloved colleague.
S1 (15:18):
And now he's very, very famous in the United.
S4 (15:21):
States, extremely, terrifyingly famous. He starts breaking a series of
stories about entitlements. Right. Um, this is straight after the
2013 election. So October, September. October 2013. about MPs going
on six week study tours in the bicycle lanes of,
you know, Holland and and what have you like people absolutely.
(15:44):
Taking the piss right. My point is this about every
10 to 15 years, these, uh, entitlements end up getting
a bunch of MPs in trouble. And that's what's happening now.
It's metastasizing. It's not just Anika Wells anymore. Although her
use of entitlements is, uh. How how would I put it?
(16:06):
She's used them to the nth degree. Like, she's made
sure that she's claimed every single little small thing. And
that's what happened in 2013 as well, right? These there
were like these MPs back then. They weren't using entitlements
outside the rules. They were using them to their maximum.
S3 (16:22):
And Wells Wells has become unfortunately for her, she's become
the breakout example that sticks in the public's mind. I've
been looking at some of the social media stats, um,
a video that the Financial Review put up of her
press club performance last week, has 1.5 million views. I've
had friends who are school friends who laugh at my
job and think politics is is dumb. Contact me and
(16:44):
just say, what's this all about? This is it's outrageous.
It's totally cut through. It's totally cut through.
S1 (16:49):
And unfortunately.
S3 (16:51):
And there's no nuance and there's no nuance in that debate.
But that's how things go.
S1 (16:55):
And James is right. Like you're in politics for a while.
You see these things kind of break out like a
little grass fire every now and then, and you never
know who it's going to engulf, which is always propagate.
S4 (17:04):
2015 is another example.
S1 (17:06):
Yeah. Yeah. Well that's right. And what do people remember
about Bronwyn Bishop? Not her long and storied career in politics,
when she was talked about as a potential leader of
the opposition, at one point they remember her chartering a
chopper to take her. How long was the flight? Like
30 minutes.
S4 (17:21):
Oh, it was like.
S1 (17:21):
It was like Melbourne to Bendigo or something.
S4 (17:23):
25 minutes in a helicopter. I've never taken it. I
assume it's 25 minutes in a helicopter. Like most people,
I've only ever driven it.
S3 (17:32):
Um, I thought, um, just just on Wells and how
she's become the vehicle for all of this, um, grievance
out there in the community, which is in some ways
unfair to her. But she made this one comment, which
I don't think was picked up. I think it was
on Wednesday in a press conference she did just before
meeting with the Prime Minister at Kirribilli House for the
social media event. And I think it's another one of
(17:52):
those comments she would take back if she had her
time again. She said, you know, I understand people out
there don't have much time for the political class and
don't give us much breathing room. I mean, that is
a really tone deaf comment to me. Firstly, to even yeah,
I think to even acknowledge that you're in a class
is not it's not a it's not a smart way
to speak about the issue. But if you do have
(18:13):
the consciousness that you are perceived, you're perceived with a
level of unfairness. Then you should be much more judicious
about the way you go about your decision making.
S1 (18:21):
It's very hard, I think, and politicians almost always get
this wrong. In my view, it's very hard to show
contrition and to take accountability for a situation without being
seen to back down. And, you know, their egos get engaged.
And and I think that's probably what's happened here. It
is interesting obviously, James referred to this before that Annika
(18:41):
Wells has sort of sought to draw a line under
all this stuff, if you like, by referring all of
her expenses and all of her use of entitlements to
the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, which is the body that
oversees this stuff. She's the only politician to have done so.
It remains to be seen whether people, you know, journalists
will keep trawling through this stuff and maybe find more
egregious examples from the other side of the aisle, perhaps even.
(19:02):
But Albanese, his stance has been to firmly back his minister. Right, Paul?
S3 (19:06):
Yeah. Well, I was going to make that point. I mean,
the the referral to EPR is not a fronting up
quickly when the party has identified a problem to take
it seriously. Referring to Ipea is a way to cauterize
the issue in the in the medium term to just
dampen some of the criticism. It was done on the
(19:27):
afternoon before the social media ban so that the minister
could meet with the Prime Minister the next day and
have as a talking point that IP will look at
this so they could move on to talking about their policy.
There hasn't been at any point, an acknowledgement from the
Prime Minister or Minister Wells that some of this spending
might have been poor judgment, and the Prime Minister is
not he's really the key decision maker here, not the minister.
(19:48):
There's been no acknowledgement from the Prime Minister that these
family reunion entitlements might need to be looked at. And
that's in part driven by his determination to not be seen,
to be giving in, not be seen, to have a
cabinet scandal that might result in the removal of one
of his ministers, because that would diminish the sense that
he runs a stable cabinet government that has not lost
(20:10):
a minister in his term of term in office, which
he's very proud of. And so the government strategy will
be to muddy up the opposition to the greatest extent possible,
hope that Christmas comes and we all forget about it.
Hope that EPA comes back with not too strong a
finding about Minister Wells and that this all simmers down.
S1 (20:26):
So you think I mean, there is a there are
some people saying that these rules, in particular the family
reunion entitlements should be reviewed and the PM saying, no,
I'm not going to do that. I don't see anyone
on the other side of politics lobbying for it. Are
they going to make that an election pledge?
S3 (20:41):
Well, Melissa McIntosh and Simon Kennedy are the only two,
as far as I can tell, major party MPs who've
said these rules are no good and we need to
have a look at them.
S1 (20:48):
Okay.
S4 (20:49):
Yeah, I don't think I don't think they will, Jack.
S1 (20:51):
Okay. Yeah. I mean, this is this is the thing is, um,
I think there is there is probably a bipartisan agreement
or understanding that these jobs are hard on, you know,
they all believe that these jobs are hard on the family.
They're hard on marriages. They're hard on your relationship with
your kids. And you want to kind of leave that
stuff alone.
S4 (21:07):
Jacqui, you made that point earlier. You make it now.
You made it earlier. You're right. These are tough jobs.
Politicians do work really hard, you know. Yes, they're well paid,
but they deserve to be well paid. And if they
were in the private sector as a CEO, they, you know,
quite likely a lot of them would be on $1.5
million a year, not $300,000 a year or 240 or 400.
(21:28):
But to some extent we do, you know, I mean,
you do get what you pay for, and there should
be entitlements to get people like Anika Wells into Parliament.
Because I will say it again, she's a very talented minister, right?
She's a young woman or relatively young woman. And I
don't mean that in a condescending way. She's got three kids. Um,
you know, we want people like that in Parliament. That's great.
(21:50):
But that does not mean necessarily that she should be
claiming some of these expenses, like the two things can
exist and both be true simultaneously. Some of these expenses
don't pass the pub test.
S3 (22:03):
There's a strong argument and some MPs make this in private.
They would never make it in public that if MPs
were all paid more, you wouldn't need these entitlements. You
wouldn't need this arcane bureaucratic system which costs a lot
of money to administrate and which, when revealed, makes all
politicians look like they've got their snouts in the trough,
because there's all these little tricks they can use. If
they were paid at a higher rate, they could fund
(22:24):
some of this themselves. And we wouldn't need to go
through this rigmarole. But it's a brave politician who says
we should be paid more.
S1 (22:30):
Yeah, exactly.
S4 (22:31):
Paul, I have to interrupt you there for a moment.
They'll come up. Um, Anika Wells is on about $400,000
a year as a cabinet minister.
S3 (22:38):
But most, most politicians are on 215 grand a year.
S4 (22:42):
Ago. 240. And look, are you seriously telling me that
a person on $400,000 a year can't afford to fly
his or her husband or wife or partner down from
Brisbane to Melbourne and then back? We're talking about an
$800 flight. And you're right, I can't afford that. That's
what she's I mean, that's what the family reunions are.
(23:04):
This is the Boxing Day.
S3 (23:05):
She could.
S4 (23:05):
She.
S3 (23:06):
Could.
S4 (23:06):
Fund it. Of course she can afford it.
S3 (23:08):
But James, as as, you know, like there are journalists
on approximately the salary of backbenchers, they all still have
big mortgages. They all still have expenses. And if there
is an if there is an ability to get a
freebie for your partner and you're on 250 grand a year,
you probably try and take it. Yeah. And you're only.
You're only in politics for a certain. Well, they do,
(23:28):
but they entitlement.
S1 (23:30):
As I said before, an entitlement is entitlement. So they're
not doing anything wrong by using their entitlements. They're literally
entitled to them. But it's a very, very controversial issue.
And I think most people aren't earning that amount of money.
And they do see politicians as being, you know, they're
more likely to see politicians as being self-interested. And also,
the stuff that Anika Wells is doing is kind of
(23:51):
fun stuff. I think that's that's key as well. She's
not she's not bringing her kids to Canberra to, like,
trudge around questacon like the rest of us do. Not
giving away my.
S4 (24:00):
I won't hear a bad word against Questacon Jackie. It's
it's nothing wrong with it, but it's not. Skiing at
Thredbo is terrific.
S3 (24:07):
Yeah, the the cut through here comes from the events
that Minister Wells has to go to. Yeah, I was
speaking to a former sports minister who said that. Yeah,
they did like to bring their partners to events, because
if you go to the grand final of NRL or AFL,
Gillon McLachlan or Sir Andrew Dillon, now the CEO or
Andrew Abdo at NRL or Peter V'landys, they all have
their partners there too. So you look like you're out
(24:29):
of school if you don't have yours.
S1 (24:31):
So it would be a little bit lonely and awkward.
I mean, they're people, right? Nobody wants to turn up
to these kinds of things. Stag. I get it personally.
And I think they want they want to stay married.
So they're like, you know, honey, why don't you come
down from Brisbane this weekend and we can spend some
time together, even though I have to go to this
work event? I get it.
S4 (24:46):
But, you know, once or twice, Jackie, but every grand
final for the NRL, the AFL, the Formula One.
S1 (24:53):
I think we're I think we're never going to solve
this argument. All that we can agree upon is that
taking your kids to Questacon in Canberra on the holidays
is a great family, fun, adventure, and very cost of
living friendly.
S4 (25:06):
Yeah. No, no, it's it's it's a terrible idea and
it's a recipe for a giant headache. And I can
say that as a father of three young children, they
have fun. We get the headache.
S1 (25:16):
Yeah, yeah. Um, anyway, see you at questacon over the summer.
We will of course be recording next week. James, thanks
so much for coming on. It was a very lively
debate with you, as always.
S4 (25:27):
Yeah. Pleasure.
S3 (25:28):
Thanks, guys.
S1 (25:36):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with technical assistance
from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. And
special thanks to Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. To listen
to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow Inside
Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to
your podcasts. To stay up to date with all the politics,
(25:56):
news and exclusives, visit The Age or The Sydney Morning
Herald websites. And to support our journalism, subscribe to us
by visiting The Age or. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank
you for listening.
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