Communications Minister Anika Wells stings taxpayers with nearly $100k on flights to New York

Communications Minister Anika Wells spent almost $100,000 of taxpayer money on a three-day trip to New York City, according to documents released at Senate estimates.

Wells stung the public purse with $94,828.75 on return flights for herself and two staffers to attend the United Nations General Assembly in early September.

A breakdown of the flights revealed Wells paid $34,426.58 for her ticket.

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Flights for the minister's deputy chief of staff were $38,165.86, and her assistant secretary for online safety's tickets were $22,236.31 for the whirlwind visit.

Accommodation and transport in the Big Apple also totalled around $22,296 for the trio.

The UN General Assembly was already well-represented by Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

Wells visited NYC during the UN General Assembly to spruik Australia's impending under-16 social media ban.

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She was due to fly earlier alongside the PM but her trip was delayed by several days due to the Optus Triple Zero outage.

The minister faced criticism for still flying to NYC amid the Optus Triple Zero catastrophe.

Shadow Minister for Communications Melissa McIntosh said Wells should "never have left her post during the Triple Zero crisis".

"As the crisis continued to unfold, the minister was holding a lavish event in New York. An event where the bill for over $73,000 was footed by the minister's communications department, also known as the Australian taxpayer," McIntosh said.

McIntosh is referring to an event the Australian government hosted in New York on protecting kids in the digital age, which reportedly cost an estimated $69,500.

"And while families back in Australia are left wondering how the minister will actually make the under-16s social media ban work, with kids already seeking new social media outlets and platforms trialling forms of digital identification, the minister and her staff spent over $72,000 on flights to spruik its success to the UN," McIntosh added.

"It is clear this trip really was a PR trip."

When asked about the cost of the trip during her National Press Club address, Wells said her office had been "transparent" about the flights.

"The reason you know all those things is we're transparent about them, we'll disclose them and we'll continue to disclose them and we'll continue to disclose information about that trip through the usual processes," Wells said.

"That event fuelled a global momentum in this space, you have seen a number of different jurisdictions come out from that moment, as recently as last week, to announce they're going to do exactly what Australia is doing.

"It's important and I will continue to be transparent about what that cost, what it looks like, what we did, in the usual way."

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