Andrew Bolt: Dan’s disastrous attempt to save face over $380m Comm Games blowout

One line in Andrews’ deal with Comm Games bodies tells you everything about the country’s most disastrous Premier – he wants to avoid more embarrassment.

Everything about Daniel Andrews’ deal to pay $380 million for scrapping the 2026 Commonwealth Games stinks. This timing, the dishonesty, the secrecy and – above all – the utter incompetence.

One line in Andrews’ deal with Commonwealth Games bodies tells you everything about the country’s most disastrous Premier: “The parties are legally bound not to speak further regarding the details of the settlement.”

Hello? The only person who’d be embarrassed by “the parties” speaking further about how Andrews stuffed up is … Andrews himself.

So how much extra did Victoria’s Premier pay to get Commonwealth Games officials to shut up about what a fool and faker he’s been?

How convenient for Andrews that Commonwealth Games Australia boss Craig Phillips, for instance, must now stop saying Andrews can’t be believed when he claims he had to cancel the Games because costs had blown out from $2.6 billion to as much as $7 billion.

Premier Daniel Andrews announces that Victoria to pay $380m in Commonwealth Games compensation. Picture: NCA NewsWire

How good for this so-secretive Premier that Games officials can’t keep saying it was Andrews himself who made costs explode by insisting the Games be held not in Melbourne, where most facilities were ready-built, but in as many as six regional centres that just happened to be where Labor had seats it wanted to win or save at the last election.

And how handy for Andrews that he can now put on his serious face when reporters ask him questions about this colossal waste of money, and reply that under the deal – alas! – he cannot possibly comment. For legal reasons, see?

That excuse will be even handier for the Premier in dealing with two inquiries into how he blows all that money – one by Victoria’s Auditor-General, and the other by the Legislative Council.

So I ask again: how much extra did Andrews pay for that gagging clause in this deal, so helpful to him but such an insult to taxpayers stunned at spending so much money for absolutely nothing, and to all Australians amazed how he trashed our reputation for doing what we’ve promised?

Surely they are entitled to know why Andrews keeps doing this? After all, this is now the second time in his disastrous reign as Premier that Andrews has spent a fortune of taxpayers’ money just to tear up a contract.

Melbourne will not have a repeat of the 2006 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Picture: Getty Images

The first was at the start of his time at the top, reneging on contracts signed by the previous Liberal Government to build a crucial road, the East West Link. That purely political decision burned $1.1 billion.

But Andrews signing a contract to host the Commonwealth Games – then cancelling a year later – could lose taxpayers even more.

Be clear about that: this $380 million compensation deal is just part of the price of Andrews’ bungling. It doesn’t include salaries and expenses of the 100 staff his government hired to work on these yes-no Games, headed by organising supremo Jeroen Weimer, himself on around $600,000 a year. It doesn’t include compensation to local contractors or the money wasted on office space, advertising, consultants, lawyers, travel, or the work local councils did to prepare for the Games which Andrews could never afford and should never have bid for.

The deal is one thing. How Andrews announced it confirms the stench.

He actually had the hide to sneak out the announcement on Saturday, guaranteeing minimal coverage among all the sport and weekend distractions.

Treasurer Tim Pallas embarrassed himself trying to explain how this debt-ridden government had so grossly underestimated the costs in bidding for the Games. Picture: NCA NewsWire

More secrecy from this control freak: Andrews on Saturday finally released costings he’d used to justify cancelling the Games, but only enough to fit on a single page. These were mere bullet points of excuses – inflation, “hyper-escalation driven by compressed timelines”, “major sporting code displacement costs”, blowouts in transport and security, a lack of accommodation.

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas then embarrassed himself trying to explain how this debt-ridden government had so grossly underestimated the costs in bidding for the Games, or let the costs get so wildly out of control in just one year.

“The world has changed quite considerably,” he blathered. “Firstly, a couple of weeks later, Russia invaded Ukraine, and we saw hyperinflation largely around energy and commodity markets affect the world.”

Pardon? Is that really why the estimated cost of policing and security more than doubled from $201 million to $492 million? Does the war in Ukraine truly explain why the cost of transporting athletes around Victoria tripled to $300 million?

Mere spin, just like Andrews now demanding praise for saving money by cancelling the Games, when he actually wasted up to $1 billion for agreeing to what he could never afford.