Sussan Ley offers Anthony Albanese chance to work out bipartisan expenses reform amid Labor expense drama

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has offered Anthony Albanese a chance to sit down and come up with bipartisan expenses reform following a travel entitlements scandal.

It comes after Labor faced days of intense backlash over Communication Minister Anika Wells’ spending of taxpayers’ funds on lavish Paris meals, sporting games, a family ski trip and chauffeur services.

Questions mounted after it was revealed she spent $100,000 in flights for herself and two staff to attend a New York event in September to spruik Australia’s social media ban to world leaders before it was launched.

The debate has since spiralled to engulf Liberal and Greens MPs and Senators.

Mr Albanese repeatedly shot down questions about reviewing the travel entitlements system during a press conference in Canberra on Thursday, expressing reluctance to change the rules which he admitted he had benefited from.

Speaking on Sky News on Friday, Ms Ley said that the rolling headlines had outraged the public and Mr Albanese’s dismissing of it added fuel to the fire.

“That obfuscation just doesn’t cut it with the Australian people,” Ms Ley told Sky.

“This is about the Prime Minister, because it is about his ministerial code of conduct.”

In the letter Ms Ley penned to the Prime Minister, she said that the unfolding scandal had “brought the Albanese Government into disrepute and undermined public trust in the parliament”.

She made an offer to meet with him over Summer to come up with the reform and called for him to step up the scrutiny of Ms Wells’, claiming her position was now “untenable”.

Ms Ley knows about the heat misuse of travel entitlements can cause firsthand after she reigned from the frontbench in 2017 after charging taxpayers for flights to the Gold Coast to buy an investment property.

Ms Ley on Friday said she had accepted at the time that she needed to stand down but flagged that Ms Wells hasn’t had the same response.

“I made a mistake. I put my hand up. I apologised to the Australian people, and I held myself accountable to the ministerial code of conduct. Anika Wells has not,” she said.

She hit out at Mr Albanese for not enforcing the ministerial code of conduct.

“He’s giving a green light to all of his ministers to continue to live it up just exactly how Anika Wells is doing,” Ms Ley said.

“This Prime Minister has not addressed his ministerial code of conduct that she has clearly breached, nor has he said she should stand aside while this review and any investigation take place.

“What I called for yesterday and I repeat today, is that the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet should conduct an investigation into whether this minister has breached the ministerial code of conduct.”

Her call comes after senior Labor Minister Mark Butler used a morning media interview to hint that the Albanese Government could come to the table to change the rules but won’t take an active lead on it.

“I, for one, will welcome the authority not just looking at the claims that Anika Wells has referred to them, those individual claims, but looking at whether the system is meeting those two standards,” Mr Butler told Sunrise on Friday.

“As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we would welcome that advice and recommendations. If they then have to be enacted through legislation, I’m sure that’s what we would do.”

The last major change was when a helicopter flight by then-speaker Bronwyn Bishop to a Liberal party function, which cost taxpayers more than $5200 angered Australians.