‘Shifty’ Jacinta Allan caught out playing Games

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. Picture: Getty Images

It now seems clear Jacinta Allan wasn’t being completely truthful when she told a parliamentary committee on June 13 that “tremendous progress” was being made on the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

During Monday’s opening of an upper house inquiry into the cancellation of the Games, strong evidence emerged that calls into question the new Premier’s integrity.

Appearing on June 13, the then Games minister effusively spruiked the event, boasting of “tremendous progress”, predicting the event would be a “roaring success” and that preparations were already making “history”.

After Monday’s evidence, that’s looking like nothing more than worthless spin, possibly even a political cover-up, from the minister who is now Victoria’s Premier.

Senior public servants told the inquiry Allan was briefed on the unfolding budget crisis engulfing the Games in the months before her June 13 parliamentary appearance.

Commonwealth Games Office’s former chief executive Allen Garner told the inquiry he briefed Allan and junior Games minister Harriet Shing about costs. “There was briefings in regard to the increasing costs,” he said on Monday.

Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions secretary Tim Ada said during March there were “a series of discussions ... with central agencies and in mid-April the government formally considered the new cost estimates”.

He added: “An updated gross budget estimate of $4.5bn was not approved but the department was asked to further explore opportunities to reduce costs while still meeting the government’s commitment to host the Games in regional Victoria.”

Ada said the department understood there would be “substantial additional costs” to run the games in February this year. Games chair Peggy O’Neal also told the inquiry that it became clear in February that more money was needed.

Further, there was evidence that costs started emerging as an issue in late 2022, just weeks after the Andrews Government won the election, helped by its reckless vote-grabbing lunge to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

Plus, a bombshell April 4 letter from Peggy O’Neal to Allan was revealed by The Australian on Monday. That letter, addressed directly to Allan, sounded the alarm, requesting $700m extra.

“We recognise that our revised figures are significantly in excess of the original estimates from early 2022,” O’Neal warned, before adding the demand for extra cash would “represent significant challenges to government”.

And it is now clear, Allan was being less than forthcoming with O’Neal. First, she never responded formally to the April 4 letter. Second, while Allan was informed by then premier Daniel Andrews on June 14 that lawyers were being called in to consider tearing up the contract, she failed to inform O’Neal of this significant development at a meeting on June 19.

This all leaves the new Premier looking shifty.