Labor minister Anika Wells racks up almost $100,000 in taxpayer-funded flights to spruik social media ban

Communications Minister Anika Wells racked up almost $100,000 in taxpayer-funded flights to New York to spruik Australia’s social media ban to world leaders before it is implemented.

The minister and two staff members flew to the United States for a three-day summit at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Ms Wells’ airfares cost $34,427, while her deputy chief of staff’s flights cost $38,166, and an assistant secretary for Online Safety incurred $22,236.31 in airfares.

It totalled $94,828.75 for the three travellers, while their accommodation cost almost another $20,000.

Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson was scathing of the bill, especially as the dash to the Big Apple came in the days after three deaths linked to the Optus triple-0 outage.

“Not only did Anika Wells offensively jet set to New York as the triple-0 crisis unfolded, she did so at enormous cost to Australian taxpayers,” Senator Henderson said.

“This is another example of Labor’s wrong priorities when so many Australians are struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table.”

While in the US, Ms Wells met with executives from Microsoft, Meta and Amazon and hosted a $69,000 “Protecting Children in the Digital Age” alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The pair used the event to spruik their social policy to other world leaders, including European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and leaders from Greece, Malta, Fiji and Tonga.

While Ms Wells was on the US east coast, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant had travelled to Silicon Valley to do the boardroom grunt work to figure out if tech giants could and would comply.

It marked just one of a string of trips Ms Inman Grant has taken during her efforts to get the ban up and running by December 10.

Senate estimates were also told through questions taken on notice that Ms Inman Grant had spent more than $1 million on overseas and domestic travel for her and staff in 2024-25.

And since 2017, the commissioner — who has a $450,000 annual salary — had a travel expenses bill of more than $3 million.

The minister has been contacted for comment.