Victoria actively hindered Commonwealth Games inquiry: Senate committee

A Senate committee has accused the Victorian government of actively hindering its inquiry into the state’s scrapping of the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

Premier Daniel Andrews declined an invitation to give evidence to the inquiry, as was his right.

But the committee heard he also wrote to witnesses to warn them against disclosing information that the Victorian government viewed as confidential.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews speaks to the media last month.Credit: Chris Hopkins

In an interim report tabled on Thursday afternoon, the Nationals-led committee said the Victorian government and its consultants Ernst & Young had not respected the Senate’s power to compel information.

“The Victorian government not only did not engage in the inquiry, but, in the committee’s view, actively worked to hinder the engagement of other witnesses by expressing its broad position on protected evidence about a wide range of witnesses in its letter of 25 August 2023,” the report said.

Andrews would not commit to reading the report, dismissing it earlier on Thursday as a political stunt.

“I’m not taking integrity lectures, probity lectures, behavioural lectures, from [Nationals Senate leader] Bridget McKenzie. I’m just not. Not a chance,” Andrews said.

The Victorian government canned the Games in July, blaming cost overruns that blew the cost from $2.6 billion to up to $7 billion. It committed to continuing with $2 billion worth of legacy projects for the regions and last month negotiated a $380 million compensation bill for organisers.

The committee said it respected Victoria’s sovereign right to cancel the Games, described by Nationals senator and inquiry chair Matt Canavan as a “monumental stuff-up”.

The Queensland senator said that while it was not the federal government’s fault, the Commonwealth needed to step up to find a resolution for Australia to host the Games.

“We’re still trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. I probably won’t have time this evening to go through all of the barriers we faced as a committee,” Canavan said in parliament on Thursday afternoon.

“The Victorian government were obviously within their rights not to cooperate with our inquiry and that is a well established precedent ... but in this instance the Victorian government sought to extend that shield, that protection, to third parties such as Ernst & Young, legal firms, former ministers.”

The committee said it was unable to reach conclusions about Victoria’s ill-fated Games because the state and other witnesses had not cooperated with its inquiry.

It singled out Ernst & Young, which led the original business case for the Victorian government that underestimated the cost of hosting the Games almost threefold.

EY partner Dean Yates earlier told the inquiry he stood by the business case.

“EY should reflect very carefully whether its participation, in both the public and in [closed] sessions, met the high and rising standards expected of a recipient of public funding, in particular robust accountability for the use of this funding,” the report said.

The Senate had never accepted claims of legal or commercial-in-confidence privilege as grounds to refuse information, according to the committee.

“It is incumbent upon individuals and organisations to respect the Senate, and the role played by its committees, and to engage in good faith. The committee will consider further its response to the lack of cooperation of EY in subsequent reports.”

The two Labor members of the committee did not provide a dissenting report to disagree with those findings, but did attach “additional comments” that stated they had “a different view of the role of the Australian government going forward”.

In parliament on Thursday, Labor’s Linda White said Victoria remained the most revered state for international sporting events.

The Senate inquiry into Australia’s preparedness to host the Commonwealth, Olympic and Paralympic Games reopened submissions when Victoria aborted the event.

The decision to dump the Games is separately being probed by an upper house committee in state parliament and by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.

Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto said the premier should not dismiss attempts to get to the bottom of the cancellation. “He calls that a stunt?”

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