{"id":450828,"date":"2026-06-10T16:46:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=450828"},"modified":"2026-06-10T16:46:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:46:38","slug":"australian-mps-face-backlash-over-taxpayer-funded-world-cup-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=450828","title":{"rendered":"Australian MPs Face Backlash Over Taxpayer-Funded World Cup Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sport Minister Anika Wells and at least 11 other MPs, including Labor members like Jerome Laxale and Liberal Senator Anne Ruston, are traveling to support the Socceroos in their group-stage matches against Turkey, the USA, and Paraguay in Vancouver, Seattle, and Santa Clara. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Critics online call them hypocrites and parasites, resurfacing Wells&#8217; past expense scandals where she repaid over $10,000 for family trips tied to events like AFL grand finals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While defenders say the bipartisan trip aids national teams and diplomacy, the timing fuels demands for cost transparency and reform as the tournament kicks off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Critics online call them hypocrites and parasites, resurfacing Wells&#8217; past expense scandals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":174328,"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":[35],"tags":[18947,15313],"class_list":["post-450828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-anika-smells","tag-anika-wells"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450828","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=450828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450829,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450828\/revisions\/450829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/174328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=450828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=450828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=450828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}