Andrew Bolt: Scotland Commonwealth Games announcement is another example of Victoria’s big budget failures

Scotland’s Commonwealth Games officials have hightlighted the Victorian government’s deceit and incompetence — there is now zero doubt it is Australia’s worst government.

Sure, the Albanese government is a clown show, but there’s now zero doubt which government in Australia is the worst – the most deceitful and unbelievably incompetent.

The news from Scotland’s Commonwealth Games officials has sealed that deal, turning the Victorian Labor government into an international laughing stock.

Scotland Commonwealth Games announced it could host the 2026 Commonwealth Games for just $220m and get Victorians to pay for almost all of it from the $380m compensation their government paid last year for cancelling its contract to host them.

Hang on, the Scots can host the Games for $220m?

Victorian Labor government is an international laughing stock. Picture: AFP

But didn’t Victoria’s premier Daniel Andrews last year claim he had to cancel hosting those Games because it would cost $7bn?

That’s 32 times more!

Yet the minister in charge of (not) delivering Melbourne’s Games on time and budget, Jacinta Allan, then replaced Andrews as Premier, proving Victoria rewards big failures with bigger jobs.

Look at Allan’s blowouts in her years as minister for transport and infrastructure. The West Gate Tunnel is years late and $4bn over budget. The airport rail link is four years behind and $3bn over budget. The Metro Tunnel is $3bn over.

Daniel Andrews last year claim he had to cancel hosting the Games because it would cost $7bn. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

The planned Suburban Rail Loop, to link suburbs few want to visit to other suburbs few want to visit, has soared from an estimated cost of $50bn to $125bn. So it’s no surprise Victoria now has the country’s biggest state debt, spraying borrowed money that’s adding to inflation everywhere.

Part of that financial bungling is due to the government’s more general incompetence. It notoriously set a world record for the city locked down longest during the Covid pandemic, thanks to bungling at its quarantine hotels and its obscenely heavy-handed over-reaction.

It has a history of unscientific overreactions. Blinded by climate catastrophism, it extended a ban on all gas exploration on land for a decade, until realising – too late – all eastern Australia was running dangerously short of gas.

Reason is dead to this government.

It also has Australia’s busiest gender reassignment centre for children, and will one day – I predict – lead Australia for most transgender adults suing for surgery they regret.

Tell me what other state has a record so terrible, and a capital city so grim?

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: Scotland Commonwealth Games announcement is another example of Victoria’s big budget failures