A meeting at the centre of Communications Minister Anika Wells’ disputed $3,681 taxpayer-funded trip to Adelaide does not appear in another minister’s publicly released diary.
Wells told the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA) that she held a “sideline meeting” with South Australian Health Minister Chris Picton at a birthday party for his wife, Connie Blefari, in June last year.
She said the discussion finished at 7.45pm, a timing IPEA accepted as reasonable grounds for her to stay in Adelaide overnight before flying back to Brisbane.
However, excerpts of Picton’s ministerial diary obtained through Freedom of Information laws make no specific reference to a meeting with Wells.
From 5pm onwards, the diary labels the period “personal affairs” and does not identify Wells by name.
Travel records show Wells flew from Brisbane to Adelaide on June 6, 2025, and returned on June 8.
While in Adelaide, she visited a school and met Trade Minister Don Farrell.
Wells also told IPEA she had initially been due to meet Picton on June 7, before attending Blefari’s birthday celebration later that evening.
Chris Picton (left) did not show the “sideline” meeting with Wells in his diary released under FOI
In her submission to IPEA, Wells said talks with Farrell ran over time, forcing the planned meeting with Picton to be postponed until the private function.
The FOI documents, however, contain no explicit mention of that discussion.
An entry starting at 3pm is described as personal and has been redacted. Picton’s diary lists only one public official engagement that day: a media appearance about ambulance ramping at the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
Despite the omission, both Wells and Picton have rejected suggestions that the released diary casts doubt on her account of the “sideline” meeting.
A South Australian government spokesperson told Daily Mail that the meeting did occur, arguing the released documents did not provide the complete picture.
The spokesperson said names are routinely removed from personal diary entries disclosed under FOI laws, adding that Wells’ name was redacted to protect privacy.
“Minister Wells’ Adelaide travel including her meeting with Minister Picton was clearly detailed in the Federal IPEA report in May,” the spokesperson said.
“Exactly as Minister Wells informed IPEA, the Ministers were unable to meet during the day and met during a function that evening.”
A spokesperson for Wells (pictured) said “nothing had changed” from her comments to IPEA
The spokesperson added that personal information—including names, addresses and phone numbers—is routinely removed from documents released under South Australia’s FOI laws.
A spokeswoman for Wells also stood by the minister’s version of events, telling Daily Mail that “nothing had changed”.
‘As outlined in the IPEA report, the Ministers were due to meet at this time,’ she said.
The latest questions over Wells’ travel claims come after she became embroiled in a taxpayer-funded travel controversy late last year, when it emerged more than $100,000 had been spent flying her and a staff member to New York to promote the federal government’s social media ban for under-16s at a United Nations event.
The controversy triggered broader scrutiny of Wells’ use of official travel and family reunion entitlements, prompting the minister to refer herself to IPEA for an audit.
The audit found Wells had incorrectly claimed expenses relating to four trips between 2022 and 2025.
IPEA identified $8,092.89 in inappropriate travel and hire-car claims, including $5,513 for family flights taken before her 2022 swearing-in and $726 for her husband’s flight home after the 2025 AFL Grand Final.
A 25 per cent penalty loading of $2,023.22 took the total repayment bill to more than $10,000.