In Canberra, the most dangerous political scandals are never the labyrinthine ones requiring whiteboards and flow charts. It’s the simple ones, the ones voters can explain to each other in a supermarket queue, that bring ministers undone.

Peter Reith’s phone card. Bronwyn Bishop’s helicopter. Sussan Ley’s impulse property buy. George Christensen’s Philippines holidays. You don’t need a PhD in public administration to recognise when something smells off.

Anika Wells’ near $100,000 jaunt to New York fits squarely, and dangerously, into that canon. How it’s handled from here will be telling.

Communications Minister Anika Wells at the National Press Club on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

For a minister who once told Australians she was “new” to the fiendishly complicated telecommunications portfolio, Wells has stumbled into the most uncomplicated political mess imaginable. No need for a briefing note or a departmental explainer. It’s three return tickets to Manhattan – one each for her, a deputy chief of staff, and an online safety bureaucrat – clocking in at an eye-watering $94,828.

The timing? Even worse. While Optus customers were discovering that Triple Zero sometimes meant nothing........

© The Sydney Morning Herald