{"id":327673,"date":"2025-12-11T10:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=327673"},"modified":"2025-12-11T10:47:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:47:12","slug":"anika-wells-is-losing-the-confidence-of-sports-bosses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=327673","title":{"rendered":"Anika Wells is losing the confidence of sports bosses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s lucky Anika Wells<\/a> has the high-profile communications ministry because she may have lost the support of some of Australia\u2019s most senior sports officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been telling that in a ring-around of many of the heads of major sports organisations not a single one had anything to say in support of Wells or her achievements in the 3\u00bd years that she\u2019s held the sports portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best I could get was this from one very senior official: \u201cI like Anika a lot. But it\u2019s hard to defend having limo drivers waiting for hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And from another: \u201cShe\u2019ll ride this out. But may lose sport.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding later: \u201cI hope she learns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, sport can\u2019t afford to have Wells fronting up knowing the media cameras will be snapping away, with news headlines waiting to be written, and their events becoming the butt of jokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there is one constant criticism I have heard repeatedly from senior sports officials, it is that Wells has been notoriously difficult to pin down for meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe now we know why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was so busy accepting the free tickets to the party \u2013 which she is entitled to do \u2013 that there was little time left for the boring office bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid growing pressure over the minister\u2019s growing list of taxpayer-funded flights, meals, drinks and cars \u2013 sometimes for her husband as well \u2013 she has referred herself to the government\u2019s watchdog<\/a> to be audited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority does its job, Wells now has a perfect out to not have to answer constant media questions about her seemingly casual approach to spending other people\u2019s money, our money, and can focus her efforts elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But where will that focus be? At the Boxing Day Test? At the Australian Open tennis? At cycling\u2019s Santos Tour Down Under?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will husband be reunited with busy wife at any of these events? Will he offer to pay for his own flights this time? Or are we feeling the Christmas cheer and offering to dig deep to shout him again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growing list of entitlements<\/a> has come in the same week that Treasurer Jim Chalmers had to front the cameras and tell Australians he was taking back $300 from every household that would have gone to their ever-growing electricity bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not a good look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: AFR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even if she is cleared by the expenses watchdog, her lack of judgment will dog her whenever she is photographed in the stands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":327674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,35],"tags":[15313,18943],"class_list":["post-327673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-breaking-news","tag-anika-wells","tag-travel-rorts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=327673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327675,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327673\/revisions\/327675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/327674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=327673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=327673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=327673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}