Daniel Andrews’ Commonwealth Games cancellation a masterstroke of modernity

Dan Andrews’ decision to walk away from the multi-city sports carnival feels refreshing, writes Nikki Gemmell. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

The recent cancellation of Victoria’s Commonwealth Games feels rooted in old certainties of empire and monarchy and colonies; certainties that are breaking down, and seemingly rapidly, in this post-Elizabethan era.

We’re entering a new age of scepticism in terms of our former colonial overlord, a reckoning about just how reverent and subservient we’re meant to be. Charles, we have a problem, and I can only imagine the dismay that’s gone down in gilded palaces over the past 10 days. There are wider implications to this beyond the cancelling of a sports event.

Dan Andrews’ decision to walk away from the multi-city sports carnival feels refreshing, a sign of the times. Because the financial model of these monstrously expensive sporting events doesn’t stack up, and the taxpayer always ends up with the headache. Let the UK pay if it wants these games so much. Let King Charles dig into his enormous wealth if he’s so wedded to the concept. But is he? And if he’d visited for the Games, would Aussie taxpayers be left footing the bill for the junket? Of course.

The late Queen, bless her soul, made known her passion for all things Commonwealth, but does Charles? Elizabeth II would have been devastated at this turn of events for her cherished games. She loved all the Commonwealth stood for and the games seemed bound up with her. Her son, less so.

It’s telling that none of our states or territories want to pick up the poisoned baton. The games always felt slightly embarrassing anyway, with the mighty roar of Australia, Canada and the UK dominating so grotesquely those valiant smaller countries of the dominion. The whole thing was starting to feel anachronistic, creaky.

The Commonwealth Games have off-message colonial origins, beginning life as the British Empire Games. Pictures spring to mind of the Queen on a Jeep with a robotic circular hand motion among the upturned faces of adoring subjects. Yet in this day and age, those optics aren’t great; they give much of the younger generation the ick.

And for athletes competing at the highest level, the games are no longer a pinnacle world event. Practice, as opposed to serious competition. It was all getting slightly off-brand in our modern era. Dan Andrews’ decision feels like a masterstroke of modernity, a declaration that will one day be cited by the history books in terms of Australia’s shift towards a republic. Out with the old ways, those dusty vestiges of colonialism, and let’s put our money where it’s really needed.

Recent balcony appearances of the royals show the incredible disappearing family. Physically, and in our minds too. Once the balcony looked plumped with people yet now it looks scattered and sparse. Charles doesn’t have the sparkle of his mother, and the endurance of the monarchy relies on enchantment; or in other words, mass delusion. We’re just not getting it with the new bloke, and the cancellation of the games feels like a symptom of this.

In a post-Brexit world, Britain is losing its allure. The farce that was Boris Johnson showed us the emperor has no clothes. Then there was the shameful behaviour in the Long Room at Lord’s during the recent Ashes Test, when members directed most of their abuse towards our gentle Muslim in their midst, Usman Khawaja. Is it too soon to declare recent events a fin de siecle moment, as we slide into new ways of thinking? As colonial subjects it was ingrained in us, over generations, to revere these types of Brits as representing the pinnacle of a civilised world. Who says that now?

Old certainties are breaking down, and this latest insurrection encapsulates an audacious sense of pushback.