Poor Fellow, My Victoria

A timeline of events leading up to the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, leaked to The Australian newspaper today, shows two interesting things.

First, the Victorian Labor Government signed a heads of agreement to host the games in February 2022. And they approved a business case in March 2023.

Um, anyone else see the problem with this?

Dan Andrews signed Victorians up for an event with nothing but a ‘best guess’ as to how much it would cost the state.

Albo calls it “the vibe”.

If this is how they operate, is it any wonder the State is almost broke, and every new day brings a new tax?

Now get this …

The belated business case - done a year after they had decided to host the Games - was approved by the Government in March 2023.

In April 2023 the Government was told the numbers - approved just weeks earlier - were likely to blow out by $2 billion … or more.

Some business case!

In less than 30 days, the approved cost of $2.6b had blown out to $4.5b. And that was a best case scenario. The government was told it could blow out to as much as $6b or even $7b.

Look up Gross Incompetence in the Oxford Dictionary and you’ll find a picture of a smiling Daniel Andrews.

Thank God Andrews resigned a week ago.

Which brings us to Andrew’ successor, Jacinta Allan. Allan was the government minister charged with implementing the Commonwealth Games.

According to the timeline prepared by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, the government knew in April that the Games would blow out by billions.

And in early June the Games organisers requested more than $700m in extra funds from the government.

Yet, on June 13, Jacinta Allan sat in front of a Parliamentary committee giving them a glowing report of Games preparedness.

She assured the committee that Games preparation were going well and she said three times that she was “confident” the Games would be a huge success.

Her supreme confidence can only have been based on a firm belief in the existence of a money tree.

Socialists never have a clue about money - only how to spend it.

Jacinta Allan is the Victorian Labor Party's version of US Vice President Kamala Harris.

Harris, er, Allan was speaking at 10am.

At 11am Premier Dan Andrews was told that Treasury could not approve any extra funds for the Games.

To recap …

You’ve got an event that was agreed to without any idea as to what it would cost.

You’ve got a business case advising the event would cost $2.6b being revised up to $4.5b just a few weeks after being presented.

You’ve got a Government minister - who knows Victoria is dead broke and who knows the Games, budgeted at $2.6b are now going to cost at least $4.5b, publicly enthusing that the Games would be amazing.

And then, quite literally as Jacinta Allan was finishing her speech about how great the Games would be, the Treasury Department was advising Daniel Andrews that the Games could not proceed.

Dan Andrews called lawyers the next day to work out how they would get out of holding the Games.

Jacinta Allan, who replaced Chairman Dan as Premier a week ago, claims she was not told that lawyers were being called until sometime before 5pm on June 14.

Do we believe that?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Why would you believe anything the Victorian Labor government tells you?

What we do know is that Allan was absolutely aware that the Games were in all sorts of financial trouble when he spoke effusively about their future.

The Government announced on July 18 straight faced that, as responsible fiscal managers, they were ditching the Games.

Having done such a miserable job of running the non-existent Commonwealth Games, Jacinta Allan is now running the entire State.

Poor fellow, my Victoria.