Victorian bureaucrats gave the state government the green light to host the Commonwealth Games despite significant and unresolved concerns and a business case that overstated the benefits and understated the costs, the auditor-general has found in scathing report into the handling of the scrapped event.
Premier Jacinta Allan – who was minister for the Games’ delivery before it was axed – said on Wednesday that she would meet the state’s top bureaucrat to discuss the findings.
She said the process had been far from ideal and that the government’s initial Games cost estimates were “clearly incorrect”.
The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office also put the cost of withdrawing from the Games at more than $589 million. This includes a previously announced $380 million settlement with Games organisers plus the costs of staff, design work and redundancies.
“This waste would have been avoided if agencies had worked together better to give frank and full advice to the government before it decided to host the Games,” the office wrote in a report tabled in Parliament on Wednesday
“This waste of taxpayer money on an event that will not happen is significant, especially considering the state’s recent sustained operating deficits and rising debt levels.”
The investigation heard officials were also hindered in part because Allan wanted to personally approve the sharing of budget updates across departments.
Even the blowouts then-premier Daniel Andrews used to justify the decision to cancel the Games in July last year – claiming it could cost $6.9 billion rather than the original budget of $2.6 billion – were found to be “overstated and not transparent”.
