Countdown to a scandal as 2026 Commonwealth Games test Jacinta Allan leadership

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan in parliament on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images

It was a crowded and chaotic hour on June 13 as Victoria’s 2026 Commonwealth Games went from making “tremendous progress” to falling apart.

What unfolded between 10am and 11am that Tuesday is politically seismic and threatens to shake Premier Jacinta Allan two weeks into her reign.

Allan finished her evidence to parliament’s public accounts and estimates committee about 10.05am. According to leaked ­details of the tick-tock of that day, an hour later, around 11am, Victoria’s most senior bureaucrat, Jeremi Moule, the secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, walked into then premier Daniel Andrews’ office and gave him a blunt message; Victoria can’t afford the Games.

The government’s official timeline, expected to be tabled on Monday to a parliamentary inquiry into the cancellation of the Games, reveals both the DPC and Treasury advised the Premier they could not support further funding for the event.

This moment marked the ­beginning of the end of the Games.

And remember, this extraordinary twist unfolded less than an hour after Allan was talking about “tremendous progress”. It is a devastating timeline for the new Premier.

The other sensational development revealed in leaked details is the fact that Andrews didn’t inform his deputy premier and the minister he put in charge of delivering the Games until the afternoon of June 14, more than a day after his briefing with Moule, that the Games were collapsing.

Around 5pm, crisis law experts Arnold Bloch Leibler were called in to advise the government on tearing up the contract. Five weeks later, on July 18, Andrews and Allan informed Victorians the Games were off.

Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: AAP

The official timeline and other details about how June 13-14 unfolded makes ugly reading for the new Premier.

It calls into question her claims that she did not mislead parliament on June 13. During her ­appearance the Games minister brushed aside emerging concerns about the event’s cost and ­declared “there is huge energy, excitement and effort” around ­delivering the regional sporting and cultural extravaganza.

“I am delighted to have the ­opportunity to talk to you today about the tremendous progress that we are making to support Victoria, and indeed regional Victoria, to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games,” she told the committee, before going on to predict the Games would be a “roaring success”.

“In some ways before even the start of the opening ceremony the Commonwealth Games in Victoria in 2026 will have already made history,” she boasted.

Thanks to a submission released this week from Games chiefs to the inquiry, we know that as early as February alarm bells were ringing about the budget when they requested a $722m emergency funding boost.

In April, Games chair Peggy O’Neal wrote to Allan “highlighting the critical timelines for decision making”. This letter has yet to be ­released, but it’s reasonable to ­assume it referenced the budget crisis.

That same month, according to the official timeline, the government was informed costs – budgeted to be $2.6bn – were likely to be significantly higher than expected, even more than $4.5 billion.

As this financial and political wildfire was raging behind the scenes, Allan was spinning hard to assure Victorians that everything was fine.

Consider this comment to the public accounts and estimates committee on June 13: “The Games are in 1008 days. In terms of the time that is needed to be taken to deliver these Games, I am confident.”

Less than two weeks into her premiership, Jacinta Allan wakes today caught in a full-blown political scandal. This is a very early, perhaps defining, test of her leadership skills.