JENI O’DOWD: The Anika Wells’ saga shows us how entitled MPs are fuelling a preventable public rage

Here’s a Christmas gift Australians won’t find under the tree, but desperately deserve: a complete, no-nonsense review of politicians’ perks.

While the rest of the country is bracing for $7 coffees, sky-high energy bills and adult children paying board just to keep the family budget afloat, our MPs glide along largely untouched.

We only ever hear about their excesses when the media uncovers them, and every time it happens, the sheer scale of entitlement is mind-blowing. Yet the perks keep rolling on, insulated from the cost-of-living crisis the rest of us are coping with.

I don’t quibble with the $239,270 base salary for a backbencher, or even the $600,000-plus for the Prime Minister. Parliament is not a nine-to-five job. It is seven days a week, a lot of travel and constant public scrutiny.

What angers me is the pile of perks stacked on top of that salary, benefits most Australians could never dream of.

Which brings me to the much-troubled Anika Wells.

While you are cutting back, our MPs will be enjoying a lavish Christmas

Last week, it was revealed that Wells and two staff members spent almost $100,000 on a trip to New York, including business-class flights, to spruik Australia’s under-16 social media ban at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

And in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics in 2024, Wells also billed taxpayers about $1000 for a dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe, followed by another $750 for drinks.

That is a long way from the Aldi prawns, discounted mince pies and beer many Australians will be serving up on Christmas Day, if they are lucky.

When pressed about the bill, Wells’ response was breathtaking in its confidence. She did not apologise. She did not concede optics. She simply pointed to the rule book and smugly framed the whole thing as being within the guidelines.

And here is the infuriating part. She is right. It was within the rules.

That is precisely why this entire system stinks. When a minister can rack up $100,000 in travel while Australians are counting coins at the checkout, defend it with a shrug and walk away unscathed, the problem is no longer individual behaviour.

The problem is the structure that allows it, sanitises it and ultimately protects it.

Wells did what the rules permitted, rules written by politicians, for politicians, with almost no reference to the people paying the bill.

In addition to their base salary, MPs receive a minimum electorate allowance of nearly $40,000 a year, which increases with electorate size.

They can also claim a vehicle-in-lieu allowance of up to about $19,500 if they forego a taxpayer-provided car. Domestic travel and stay allowances are generous, covering overnight and interstate trips and often including the MP’s spouse or dependent children.

They are allocated large annual budgets for staff, offices, communications and electorate resources, with total term costs running into the hundreds of thousands and, in some cases, more than $1 million per MP.

Added perks include taxpayer-funded home internet and phone services, cheap parking and superannuation arrangements far more favourable than anything available to ordinary workers.

And that is before you get to the former prime ministers, who bill the taxpayer millions each year for offices, staff and travel long after leaving the top job.

Remember these cases?

Labor Senator Fatima Payman spent more than $52,000 in taxpayer-funded family travel from 2022 to 2024. The Guardian revealed that four federal MPs from both major parties claimed taxpayer-funded travel and accommodation that coincided with the 2022 Melbourne Cup.

And sitting at the very top of the expense pile was senior Labor frontbencher Tony Burke, now Home Affairs and Immigration Minister, whose publicly disclosed claims for the 12 months to late 2022 topped $790,000, including items as petty as dry-cleaning.

Between July 2024 and June 2025, staff for more than 40 Labor ministers and assistant ministers ran up about $22 million in travel costs, including business-class flights and generous nightly allowances.

And only last month, news.com.au revealed the Liberal Party’s internal brawl over net zero cost taxpayers at least $136,000 in travel and accommodation for its special out-of-session climate meeting in Canberra, with total costs likely to top $200,000 once staff are included.

My personal favourite remains when the then NSW transport minister, Jo Haylen, used a taxpayer-funded driver for personal travel, including a 446km, 13-hour round trip on Australia Day weekend to a winery lunch with her mates.

About a year ago, NSW independent Wentworth MP Allegra Spender made headlines by cancelling her Qantas and Virgin VIP lounge memberships and publicly calling for an end to free flight upgrades for politicians, warning the perks were eroding public trust.

It sparked a flurry of statements, but no fundamental overhaul of the rules and certainly nothing resembling a serious public review of Canberra’s perks culture.

So while you hunt for bargains in the Black Friday sales to make your family’s Christmas a little brighter, think about your local MP.

Their festive season will run a little more smoothly than yours, with travel, glossy end-of-year mail-outs and even taxpayer-funded Christmas cards to spread cheer all round.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will be switching off the air conditioner, timing showers to the length of a pop song and pretending the supermarket bill is just a bad dream.

We are bracing for another year of interest rates stuck in concrete and settling for supermarket prawns because who can afford a couple of kilos from the fish markets anymore?

And, while you are cutting back, our MPs will be enjoying fresh seafood, sipping something cold and French and sending out taxpayer-funded Christmas cheer, congratulating themselves on a job well done.