Minister Defends $100k Global Para-Sports Trip That Was Definitely Not a Pub Crawl

Photo by Global Residence Index on Unsplash

KEY POINTS

•Communications minister Anika Wells traveled to New York for a United Nations meeting with Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
•The $100,000 trip included a staffer and a public servant and focused on bipartisan legislation and para-sport initiatives.
•Albanese defended the expenditure, noting it was within entitlements and necessary for follow-up discussions after the UN event.

In a world where $100,000 trips for one minister, one staffer, and a public servant cause headlines, Anika Wells boldly claimed she genuinely chose to juggle communications and sports minister duties at the UN in New York. Penny Wong and Albanese backed her, praising bipartisan legislation attributed cheekily to Peter Dutton, because why not? The trip wasn’t just about diplomacy—it was about para-sport uplift, family reunion entitlements, and certainly not under-18s sneaking drinks on Saturday night somewhere in Australia. Wells’s rationale? It was ‘within entitlements’—the political equivalent of claiming your yacht trip was totally within budget.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Spending $100k to break a para-sport law at the UN while vaguely blaming Saturday night under-18 pub crawls is peak political multitasking.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Nothing screams ‘working hard’ like a minister, a staffer, a public servant, and $100k flying to NYC to talk sports and legislation like it’s a Netflix crossover event.

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