Anika Wells forced to repays $10,116 over taxpayer-funded family travel breaches
Sport Minister Anika Wells has repaid more than $10,000 to taxpayers after an independent audit found she incorrectly claimed family travel expenses.


News.com.au
May 8, 2026

Sport Minister Anika Wells has repaid more than $10,000 to taxpayers after an independent audit found she incorrectly claimed family travel expenses.

One of the trips in question was a flight home for her husband from the 2025 AFL grand final in 2025 while another involved her swearing in and a long haul car hire trip.

The Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority commenced its audit into the minister’s travel expenses between 2022 and 2025 in December.

Six months later, the report found a string of breaches involving travel by Ms Wells and her husband.   

“I asked the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority to audit every single trip I took between 2022 and 2025,” she said in a statement.

“The audit found, over four years of travel, involving nearly 250 separate trips, I made four mistakes.

“These were four cases where I chose what I thought was the more sensible, cheaper option, but those choices were not allowed according to the rules, which I accept and respect.”

AFL grand final trip under the spotlight

The first disputed claim dates to February 2022, when Wells contracted COVID-19 during a Canberra sitting week.


Her family had been accompanying her in the capital, and while her husband had already departed for Brisbane with two of their children, one son remained with the Minister.

When she tested positive and was required to isolate, her husband returned to Canberra the same day to collect their son.

Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Sport Anika Well.
Because the family’s movements that day were driven by the medical emergency rather than joining the Minister for parliamentary business, IPEA found the travel did not meet the regulations for family reunion travel.

The second breach related to Wells’ swearing-in as Communications and Sport Minister in May 2025.

Her family travelled to Canberra for the ceremony, staying with friends rather than at Commonwealth expense, and used a hire car to get around including to the swearing-in itself.

The problem arose over the weekend that fell within the trip — IPEA found there was no official parliamentary business between the Friday and the following Monday, meaning the family travel could not be treated as one continuous period.

The alternative of Anika Wells flying back to Brisbane and returning to Canberra , she says, would have cost around $1,200 more than the approach she took.


Ms Wells at the 2025 NRL Grand Final alongside Brisbane Broncos player Pat Carrigan.

The third breach involved her husband’s return flight from Melbourne after the 2025 AFL Grand Final in September.

She had changed her own travel plans at the last minute for work reasons, and that change had the effect of invalidating the family travel booking.

Her husband had stayed privately rather than at Commonwealth expense, and his Sunday return flight was actually cheaper than flying home on the Saturday — but because of Wells’ change of plans, the booking no longer met the requirements.

The fourth claim involved a hire car from Toowoomba to Sydney ahead of a sitting week in October 2025. Wells chose to drive rather than fly — a decision that was cheaper than the alternative airfares.

However the trip was invalidated after she stopped to visit family on the way, which IPEA found made the journey non-compliant.

Of the 74 hours the car was hired, 41 hours was found not to be for the dominant purpose of parliamentary business.

Audit clears international travel

The audit cleared all of Wells’ international travel — six overseas trips totalling $279,818.99 — including attendance at the FIFA Women’s World Cup draw in New Zealand, the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Qatar, the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, and the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2025.


An example of Ms Wells’ expenses.
All international trips had been approved in advance by the Prime Minister.

The New York trip, which cost $90,561.64 and had attracted significant media attention, was examined.

IPEA found Wells had very limited flight options available because she needed to complete official duties in Brisbane before departing, and cleared the expenditure.

The authority has since announced it will establish a mechanism to flag higher-cost bookings before they are finalised.

Yeah..Nah - she needs to go.  I watched an interview with her and she came over as an entitled front bench Minister who has that “let them eat cake” attitude towards us commoners.  Labor kicked up a stink whenever the Coalition were caught out and action was taken Labor need to do the same.  Get rid of her

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Only after getting caught out, of course.

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Yeah, nah - I wouldn't agree with that.

I wonder if we can now get her to apologise for not lifting a finger to prevent even one death while thousands of elderly Australians were dying of COVID in Aged Care a few years back when she was Minister for Sport and Aged Care?

As I've said a couple of times in the past - a rather bizarre combination of portfolios in my opinion.

Especially since she seemed to spend most of her time talking about sport (and having her Albanese style photo ops at lots of sporting events) while COVID was killing elderly Australians in Aged Care (and they're still dying, by the way. Except the government now hides the numbers so no one knows how many deaths are still happening).

Disgraceful stuff. And, yes - she needs to go.

Captain Nemo wrote on May 9^th, 2026 at 12:37pm:


Oink, oink!