00:00Well, it's for her use of taxpayer money yet again.
00:07She's been under the firing line ever since the cost of her trip to New York for the United
00:13Nations was revealed to be around the $100,000 mark.
00:17She's since been criticised for her use of family reunion entitlements and flying her
00:22husband and children out to various sporting events that she was working at.
00:27Today, there's a whole new set of questions over her use of Commonwealth cars.
00:33Comcars, the government's provided driver car service, and she is reported to have left
00:40them waiting for hours at a time on several different occasions while she attended sporting
00:45events.
00:46So, she spent around $1,000 on each occasion for the NRL, AFL and Australian Open finals.
00:54Comcars are billed per minute. It's just over $2 a minute, which suggests these cars were
01:00in use and left waiting for at least seven hours on each of those occasions.
01:05That said, these expensive Comcar trips are not unusual for MPs across the political spectrum.
01:13Since 2017, nearly 700 trips have cost more than $1,000. 88 politicians have crossed that
01:21threshold. This year, at the top of the list is Bob Catter, who spent nearly $3,000 on a
01:28Comcar in a day. He's exceeded the $1,000 threshold nine times this year. That said, he does have
01:35a larger allowance because he does have such a large electorate. But even the opposition,
01:40who have been criticising Annika Wells and her spending this week, have racked up their own
01:46bills on Comcars and indeed as well for those family travel arrangements. Shadow Treasurer
01:51Ted O'Brien has been questioned over his use of family reunion entitlements to fly his family
01:58to Newcastle, which he is entitled to do as Annika Wells was. But what this has really brought
02:05about is this question of not so much whether things are within the rules or above board, but
02:12a matter of judgment. And many are saying that Annika Wells has made the wrong judgment in
02:18a lot of these cases. She's by far not the highest spender. She was ranked 34th on family reunion
02:25spending, 17th for international travel and 23rd overall. But she is the one that sort of
02:33lifted the curtain on this revelation of just how much parliamentarians spend. And she's the
02:38one in the firing light of these criticisms for us. Isabella, thank you.
02:42Thanks.
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