Anika Wells's taxpayer-funded Thredbo ski trip a costly distraction for Labor

Political life is gruelling.

Being a minister, especially a working mother with young children who must spend so many hours away from home, can be overwhelmingly difficult. 

When you are a minister, the requirements on your time and diary are never-ending — families become the collateral damage and politics has destroyed many relationships in the past. Canberra is littered with stories of emotional destruction. Everyone has a war story.

And this is where the latest revelations about Communications Minister Anika Wells become complicated.

Doesn't pass the sniff test

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday defended Anika Wells's use of nearly $3,000 of taxpayers' money on travel allowances and flights, so her husband and children could join her for a weekend at a Thredbo ski resort.

The sport and communications minister spent two nights in Thredbo on June 20 and 21 this year, after being invited by Paralympics Australia to its Adaptive Festival, which encourages young people with disabilities to try snow sports.

Was she working? It certainly seems so. Was it necessary to see her family? Undoubtedly, it was for her, and it's only natural her children would want to see their mum. But should a politician charge taxpayers for a family reunion at a ski resort? It is unlikely most Australians would think this is fair. 

No-one takes issue with the kids turning up. Thankfully, we have normalised children coming to work with us when circumstances mean it is necessary. The issue here is the charging of taxpayers. Rules may allow for it in some cases, but that doesn't mean it passes the public's sniff test. 

Good political judgement is almost always instinctive. There are rules about what you can officially get away with and, more importantly for politicians seeking a long and fruitful career, there are judgement calls that need to be made about what fits within community standards of fairness.

Who can afford to go skiing?

Trust in democracy is on a downward trajectory and stories about politicians seen to be living it up on the taxpayers' purse become more acute when the public is already rolling their eyes about politicians and "Canberra". 

If politicians want to avoid polarisation and US-style "drain the swamp" chants taking hold here, they need to go beyond complying with official rules and instead impose high standards of conduct to inoculate themselves from what Wells is experiencing.

Another problem with the Thredbo trip is that it was the Thredbo trip. Skiing is such an elite winter sport most Australians would not even be able to afford to try it. This matters because it reinforces a perception that is dangerous for any incumbent government, especially in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis: that they are out of touch with the reality of normal Australians.

Wells, of course, has been under intense scrutiny since Wednesday after revelations she charged taxpayers more than $100,000 for flights to New York to showcase Australia's social media ban.

This was followed by reports she had used her travel entitlements for trips to Adelaide, where she attended a friend's birthday party, and three trips to France in one year in her role as sports minister to attend the Rugby World Cup and the Olympics.

It's hard not to see the series of stories as a political hit job.

Labor's idle hands

In Labor circles, there is a view that these stories are coming from within their own ranks — that Wells is being pursued and punished by an internal competitor. Unlike fictional whodunnits, we are unlikely to ever know whether this is the case and, if so, who the culprit is. 

But trying to read the tea leaves on this apparent campaign to muddy up Wells is academic when the broader context is taken into account. Whoever is weaponising this information is not really the point, although it is a reminder of how Labor struggles with idle hands. 

There is a hard rule in politics: if you have done nothing wrong, your haters have no material to shop around. Based on this logic, it is a much safer bet for a high-profile minister to fund their own travel than deal with these kinds of headlines, particularly when it starts to overshadow their day job.

The public reporting on Wells's use of expenses has taken the spotlight off the minister's attempts to promote new laws that restrict under-16s use of social media, which come into effect on Wednesday. 

Instead of giving the PM a clear run at selling the social media ban, which he identifies as defining and popular for his government, yesterday Albanese was peppered with questions about the Wells travel saga.

Appearing on the ABC, the PM fielded a series of questions about the flights, who was responsible and the size of the bill. When pressed, Albanese continued to support his minister, saying the trip was "completely within rules".

He offered this defence: "I'm saying it was within entitlements and Anika Wells was working on that trip as sports minister, participating in the lifting up of para-sport."

Albanese has also defended Wells taking a $100,000 trip with a staffer and a public servant to join him and Foreign Minister Penny Wong in New York for a United Nations meeting.

"Anika Wells was doing her job as the communications minister who is in charge of this world-leading legislation, passed with bipartisan support to give credit to Peter Dutton, when he was opposition leader," Albanese said.

"And it was an important event. And it wasn't just the event there, it was then the follow-up of people wanting to have meetings, have discussions, how is this going to work? What can we do to get buy-in here? When you've got Australia, a middle power, taking on these global giants."

Liberals will be wanting a scalp

The problem for the Liberal party is that the opposition leader has also been at the centre of stories about dipping into taxpayer funds while serving in government. Sussan Ley was under fire in 2017 for buying a $795,000 apartment from a Liberal party donor while on a taxpayer-funded trip to the Gold Coast. It was humiliating for the then government. She was doggedly pursued for it, and her excuse at the time was that she had "not planned nor anticipated" buying the apartment. Ley ultimately resigned as minister in the wake of the scandal.

You'd think the history here would disqualify her from the outrage she is expressing over the Wells affair, but she seems to be doing the opposite. The Liberals will be wanting a scalp. 

The government will stick by their minister arguing the circumstances here are different. But there is frustration from within now that what was looking like a great end to the year has been torpedoed by bad judgements.

When you find yourself having to explain something in politics, history dictates you are often on the losing side of the debate. The problem for Albanese is that what was meant to be a Sunday interview bookending a remarkable political year became an exercise in explaining the inexplicable.

Patricia Karvelas is host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.