Communications Minister Anika Wells is facing questions after it emerged she had charged taxpayers to fly her husband Finn McCarthy to the cricket and Formula One.
The splurge is the latest revelation in the unfolding saga, with Ms Wells' bills for various trips running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Her Labor colleagues have defended the cash splash but the opposition has slammed the expenses as an "extravagance", with opposition Senate leader Michaelia Cash demanding an independent inquiry.
In 2022, Ms Wells charged taxpayers $1885 for return flights between Brisbane and Melbourne for her husband to join her for the Boxing Day Test against South Africa.
In 2024, she also reportedly claimed $1275 to fly her husband to Sydney for the prime minister's reception for the Australian and Pakistani cricket teams and $984 to fly him to Melbourne for a match at the MCG.
Ms Wells billed taxpayers another $888 to fly her husband from Brisbane to Melbourne to attend the 2024 Formula One Grand Prix.
The flights were all claimed under "family reunion" rules, which allow politicians to claim three business-class airfares a year for family members to join them while they are travelling on official business.
The latest claims follow a string of revelations about Ms Wells' travel, including that she charged taxpayers for a ritzy dinner in Paris, to fly her family to a NSW ski resort and to travel to Adelaide where she attended a friend's birthday party.
The government spent nearly $100,000 sending the communications minister and two staff to the United Nations in New York City to spruik Australia's upcoming social media ban.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers backed his colleague when grilled over the spend.
"There are very good reasons why the rules around these sorts of things are made and enforced at arm's length from politicians by an independent body ... and that they're disclosed and made transparent in the usual ways," he told reporters in Canberra.
But it is the parliament that determines entitlements, not the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority which monitors and enforces the rules.
Under Labor's ministerial code of conduct, frontbenchers are reminded to be cautious with their use of taxpayer money.
"Such resources are not to be subject to wasteful or extravagant use, and due economy is to be observed at all times," it warns.
Opposition communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh said she would welcome a review of the guidelines.
"The prime minister himself should ... let the Australian people know whether his minister is acting within his expectations of a senior member of his team," she said.
Cabinet minister Amanda Rishworth conceded MPs needed to be "very, very careful" with their spending while people were struggling to make ends meet but said the travel was for work purposes.
"Minister Wells has extensively answered these questions and made it very clear that she followed the guidelines," she told Nine's Today Show.
19°C