Akerman: Leave logic behind, you’re now entering Danistan

The cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games was just the latest in a series of policy backflips by Daniel Andrews which defy rational explanation, writes Piers Akerman.

Park your reasoning at the exit for Logic, 580km southwest of Sydney, when you head down the Hume Highway to darkest Danistan, as I did last week. It’s apparently an industrial estate but it may be where rational thinking stops.

There are plenty of pubs in Victoria and there wouldn’t be one in which Victorian Premier Dan Andrews could pass any sort of trustworthiness test. The cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games was just the latest in a series of policy backflips which defy rational explanation.

Andrews said the Games had to be ditched because of a cost blowout of some $4bn since the estimated $2.6bn in the May budget.

His squad of truth polluters employed diversionary tactics to get locals to look away at a train test-driving on a new line.

More than $50bn was spent on service contacts and consultants in 2020-21, two-thirds on government employees, and the tripling cost of the Games went unnoticed.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: AAP Image/James Ross

Darren Cheeseman was being paid to manage the cancelled Games. Picture: Alan Barber

The parliamentary secretary responsible for managing the event, Darren Cheeseman, was last week still being paid nearly $50,000 a year, plus expenses, on top of his base wage of nearly $200,000.

Millions more were going to Games executives hired by regional councils to oversee the implementation of the non-events in their areas.

Commonwealth Games signage at the showgrounds in Bendigo. It is now a non-event. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Compensation for the cancellation is expected to cost more than $1bn, though no agreement was reached after a team flew to a fruitless meeting with the Games administrators in the UK.

Paying billions for nothing is not a new practice for Victoria under Labor though. Andrews paid out over $1bn for an East-West link road that was never built, though he pledged that the contract could be ripped up at no cost because it was not worth the paper it was written on.

The state’s net debt is projected to reach $171bn by June 2027, from $22bn in 2018, and is expected to reach $234bn in 2032-33 if the debt ratio remains stable. That’s larger than the combined debts of NSW, Queensland and Tasmania.

Interest on the debt, nearly a quarter of the size of the state’s economy and the largest in the nation by many a country mile, will cost Victorians about $4bn this year.

Acting Commissioner Stephen Farrow and Deputy Commissioner David Wolf released the IBAC report on Thursday. Picture: David Crosling

While the fiscal disaster is there in black and white and massive amounts of red, there is another stench that is unavoidable in what was once regarded as the Garden State.

That is the inescapable, all-pervading, overpowering stink that surrounds the justice system, from the police force to the judiciary.

On Thursday, the independent corruption investigation (IBAC) released a report on its Operation Sandon, which exposed improper conduct, corruption risks in planning, political donations, lobbying, and council governance in Victoria.

According to The Australian, Andrews’ name appeared in the draft report but had been removed from the final findings. The deception squad immediately announced gas fittings would be banned from all future homes – don’t look at the IBAC report, this is more engaging.

In 2020, the High Court exposed the state’s justice system’s failings in its unanimous rejection of the charges of sexual abuse brought against the late Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in the nation. It found the Victorian Court of Appeal should not have upheld Pell’ s conviction, as the evidence could not support a guilty verdict. Pell endured 406 days in solitary confinement in Victorian jails but Andrews never offered an apology for remarks he made before Pell’s grotesque trials.

Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions, Kerri Judd, was grilled by the High Court justices and the prosecution evidence was found wanting. Last week, her refusal to lay charges in the infamous Lawyer X case, in which disgraced barrister Nicola Gobbo gave police information provided by her clients, led to special investigator, former high court judge Geoffrey Nettle, closing his office (OSI).

It’s now been revealed by the Herald Sun that Judd once represented Simon Overland, the former police chief at the centre of the Lawyer X scandal. Judd’s office said she did not have a conflict of interest. According to Victorian shadow attorney-general Michael O’Brien, the Lawyer X scandal has cost taxpayers upwards of $100m.

Just a few examples of the lunacy prevailing in Danistan. Real world sanity may kick in when I reach Logic on my way home.