If Financial Mismanagement Was a Commonwealth Games Sport ...

Dan Andrews would be the greatest medal winner of all time

If financial mismanagement was a Commonwealth Games sport, Daniel Andrews would be the greatest medal winner of all time.

Now the Victorian Premier wants another medal for cancelling an event he should never have announced in the first place.

Andrews was already presiding over a broke State when he promised to borrow another $2.6 billion to host the 2026 games.

But since when has Dan Andrews been in a hole that he didn’t believe he could make even deeper?

Andrews now says cancelling the games is the financially responsible thing to do. Not bidding for them in the first place would have been the financially responsible thing to do.

But Dan never saw bread and circuses he could resist.

Chairman Dan reckons the cost of hosting the games blew out. No kidding. Nominate a Victorian government program that hasn’t run over budget.

He explained that the Games were originally costed at $2.6 billion. That was just over a year ago.

Now it’s estimated to cost $6 billion. Or maybe $7 billion. Possibly more.

Even in cancelling the games due to cost blow outs Dan can’t nominate the exact cost much better than “within a billion dollars or so”. That’s how they roll in Australia’s most indebted state.

Who do you think Dan Andrews will blame for this massive blow out?

Dan Andrews announced Victoria would host the games just months out from an election, promising the games would be staged in regional Victoria - Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat, Gippsland and Shepparton.

It was smart politicking, exciting every sporting organisation in the state to back his re-election.

But it was terrible management. Staging the games in regional cities meant brand new facilities had to be constructed. And ticket sales in the regions would never match a Games staged in the capital city.

So, from the very beginning, Dan Andrews promised a games for which costs would be up and revenue would be down. No matter. His votes at the election were up.

Now, after voters put him on the electoral podium last November, he casually walks away from the Commonwealth Games contract he had signed just six months earlier … at a cost to taxpayers, as yet undisclosed.

He has embarrassed the State of Victoria and the nation. And yet claims the moral high ground for being ‘responsible’.

“I refuse to take money out of hospitals and schools in order to fund an event that is three times the cost estimated and budgeted for last year,” he said.

Does he expect a medal? He doesn’t deserve a participation ribbon.

He is the most irresponsible, reckless premier in the Australia’s history. He is an international embarrassment. Victorians should be furious with today’s announcement. Victorians should be furious with the entire charade.

But they won’t be.

TV host Dee Madigan tweeted:

“Right decision and smart politics”

Someone else commented:

“Dan not only cares, he acts.”

“Brave leadership,” said another

Don’t be fooled by the Tricky Dan’s promise of legacy projects and tourism boots. Andrews is a Commonwealth Games cheat and an economic vandal who should be disqualified from competing for anything ever again.

But he will survive. The press love him. The Opposition are hopeless. And the public are under a spell.

Dan Andrews could cancel Christmas and Victorians would still call him a hero.