If Sussan Ley cannot organise the demise of Communications Minister, Anika Wells, we might as well admit the Liberals are finished.

Wells has arrived at the Coalition’s office like a Christmas hamper.

The story will endure for a while, as Wells initiated an audit of her expenses by referring herself to the independent watchdog.

No doubt Labor is hoping the whole thing will be forgotten over the holiday. That is unlikely, because Wells is also heading up the Under 16 social media ban due tomorrow morning. If there is any toxic fallout, she will be shoved in front of the cameras by Labor as the pre-tenderised sacrifice.

It does not matter to public opinion that Wells’ expenses have contained themselves to the rules laid out by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority. She has become a figure of hypocrisy – the breathing example of political indifference to economic suffering.

The headlines of her many trespasses against public expectation have been so tempting that even hard-left publications tagged in.

As the situation spiralled, Treasurer Jim Chalmers laboured the point about adhering to guidelines at a press conference which he couldn’t wait to escape.

When asked why his Communications Minister was spending like it was Black Friday, Chalmers replied:

‘You know, I understand why people are interested in it. I understand why people are concerned about it. But. Uh… At the end of the day, these are within the rules.’

Interested?

His Treasury is a trillion dollars in the red.

A week ago, he tried to tax fictional profits from people’s retirement funds.

Now, Australians are being told to suck it up as the energy rebate, which made energy prices appear artificially cheaper, comes to an end in December. Merry Christmas. Senator Matt Canavan says this will lead to a 26 per cent rise in energy bills, but don’t worry, Chalmers went on to talk about providing ‘responsible’ cost-of-living help before storming off.

My spidey senses tell me Chalmers would take a different tone with the press if we were talking about $94,000 flights accumulated by a Liberal minister. They have crucified conservatives for far less.

We are not only speaking of inexplicably over-priced flights.

Every few hours a story breaks about Grand Prix tickets, a family ski trip to Thredbo for the Paralympics Australia’s Adaptive Festival, dinners in Paris, AFL tickets…

Ms Wells said it all with an awkward extended silence during a grilling from Sky News Australia host Andrew Clennell about a $3,600 trip to Adelaide where she also attended a friend’s birthday party.

When asked whether she knew about or questioned the price of her team’s $96,000 flights, Wells replied:

‘I absolutely understand that any ordinary Australians would look at those black and white figures and have a gut reaction. I completely understand that. I guess, where I’m coming from is my duty as the Comms Minister is to really important things … we’re talking about lives being lost in both these situations. We had tragic loss of life in the Optus Crisis. We had catastrophic failure on the behalf of Optus that we only found out about 24 hours after it had all happened. And we have had teens lose their lives and their parents bravely give up their own time, their own efforts to try and see reform around the world.’

Ms Wells’ answer is deeply confusing. Is she attempting to associate spending $96,000 with saving lives? Neither the Optus Crisis nor tragic teen deaths have anything to do with a ministerial team taking insultingly expensive flights.

Wells is not drawing a ‘long bow’, she is engaging in what the kids call ‘a cope’.

It is a laughable, inexcusable, wholly insufficient answer to the spending of public money.

When Sky News Australia shifted to the Minister’s Paris spending, there was another long pause.

Ms Wells had been asked how the roughly $1,200 per day meal limit had been figured out.

‘Uh… Andrew. I’m not sure. I recall, sometimes I was eating a muesli bar in the car. These are big days … these are where world sporting events take place. I didn’t choose Paris to be the venue for the Summer and Paralympic Games…’

That is a British comedy level of reply. People in Paris do not spend $1,200 on food per day. It is not an answer to the question she was asked. This is a deflection. A nervous one at that. And yes, sure, a museli bar probably met its end in the car, but Clennell pushed forward with a $1,000 dinner in Paris.

‘From memory that was an orientation meeting we had a lot of work. We try to hit the ground running with these things.’

Yes. Small business people do this all the time. At a local cafe. For about $50.

The amount of ‘work’ taking place does not equate to the value of the food and wine selected for the meal.

And just because you are ‘working’ and it is ‘important’, it does not follow that politicians should be choosing expensive options. Ordinary people don’t. Not when it is their own money and they have to account for it.

When asked if she would be willing to repay any of these costs, she reverted to it all being within the rules.

(For some reason, Ms Wells has not read between the lines when it comes to ‘just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should’.)

The point here is not to summarise the obvious walking disaster of Anika Wells, but to question where the heck the Opposition has gone.

Labor’s arrogance and entitled approach toward public money is a gift to a political opposition in a cost-of-living crisis. Aren’t the Liberals the party of economic responsibility?

Probably not, is the real answer.

It is whispered that if a party doesn’t jump on an expenses headline it is due to shared guilt. Don’t throw rocks in glass houses. That sort of thing. Is this the case? Do we have an expenses problem?

The ABC wrote earlier:

Politicians often attend corporate and charity events in the vicinity of the grand final, and major party leaders typically speak at a breakfast prior to the game.

When the entire country is rich and happy, this sort of thing might be overlooked, but politicians have screwed up. Their policies, contrived through a mixture of greed and incompetence, have left the nation’s economy in ruins. Ordinary people have gone backwards. Their businesses are gone. Their jobs are being undercut by migrants brought in by Labor. Their kids are bankrupted by their education. And the taxman is coming.

The old ways are over.

People put up with far less when their wallets are hurting.

Of course, it was Bill Shorten who came out to defend Anika Wells’ empire of bills.

He presided over what is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest drains on public resources in modern history, the NDIS. It is hovering around the $50 billion per year mark and is an entity drowning in exploitation, cons, and waste where public money runs through the bureaucracy as water into the hot desert sand.

‘The reality of my former colleagues is there’s an element of public opinion that wouldn’t be happy until we hitchhiked up the Hume Highway and slept in tents outside Parliament House,’ said Shorten.

But politicians are not hitchhiking or sleeping in tents, they are taking $96,000 flights, hosting $1,000 dinners in Paris, and taking their family skiing in Thredbo.