Sussan Ley accuses high-flying Communications Minister Anika Wells of losing focus on day job

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has accused Anika Wells of not being focused on her day job after revelations the Communications Minister’s visit to New York to spruik Australia’s social media ban for children came at a cost of almost $190,000 to taxpayers.

Ms Wells held a number of meetings with tech company executives and at least two world leaders during the three-day trip in September.

The centrepiece of her program was an event on the sidelines of the United Nations’ General Assembly, where the minister spoke as did EU president Ursula von der Leyen and advocate Emma Mason, whose teenage daughter Tilly took her own life after online bullying.

Ms Ley focused on the fact the trip happened days after the deadly Optus triple-0 outage.

“Anika Wells should be focusing on her day job,” she said on Thursday.

“While Australians were anxious about their emergency services network, and the crisis was well and truly ongoing, she chose to hop on a plane and go to New York for a job that cost the Australian taxpayers nearly $100,000 for the airfares alone.”

Ms Ley denied there were any parallels to her own travel expenses scandal that saw her sacked from Malcolm Turnbull’s cabinet after charging taxpayers for flights associated with her purchase of a Gold Coast property.

She said Ms Wells leaving Australia “in the middle of a crisis which is about emergency services” was “indefensible”.

Figures revealed in Senate estimates this week show return flights to New York for Ms Wells and two staff cost almost $95,000.

Accommodation and transport was another $24,200 while the UN events cost almost $70,000 to host.

Ms Wells on Wednesday told the National Press Club that all her travel was within guidelines and the only reason the numbers were known was because she and her department had released the details publicly.