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Tremendous progress.
That was the description Jacinta Allan reached for when she was asked to provide an update on the government’s delivery of the Commonwealth Games.
It was on the morning of June 13, just after 9am, that Allan used that questionable description in her opening statement to a Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, apparently unaware that a few hundred metres away the state’s top public servant was preparing some updated advice for the then-premier Daniel Andrews to dump the event.
Premier Jacinta Allan has said she was unaware of the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games when she made a statement to a Public Accounts and Estimates Committee in June 2023. Credit: Eamon Gallagher
Andrews was known to keep his ministers out of the loop. But even if you believe that Allan – then serving as the minister responsible for delivering the Games – was blindsided by the department’s change of tune, we can confidently assume she knew things weren’t progressing well.
Evidence from the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions has revealed that Allan knew in March that the Games would cost $2 billion more than Victoria had budgeted for based on what now appears to be a highly questionable business case.
The following month, Allan also received a letter from Peggy O’Neal, chair of the government-appointed Victoria 2026 organising committee, urgently requesting more cash for the 12-day event.
Allan cannot be blamed for the fanciful feasibility study, of course. As a minister, she was entitled to think that any business case prepared by external consultants and looked over by departmental officials would be accurate.
The issue is what she meant when, in June, she made a statement to a parliamentary committee detailing the “tremendous progress” the government was making in preparing for the Games.
If you flick to the T-section of a Thesaurus, there is a generous choice of synonyms to describe “tremendous”: very good, great, terrific. None of which belonged anywhere near the 2026 Commonwealth Games.
It’s not unreasonable to assume that an objective observer could have heard Allan’s evidence and assumed all was hunky-dory at Games HQ.
What we now know is that the only advancement that had been made was in costs.
We must give Allan the benefit of the doubt that she did not know that just 24 hours after she gave that evidence that Andrews would call in lawyers to help withdraw the state from the Games. She has been around long enough to know that telling such porkies to a parliamentary inquiry would be career limiting.
But her lengthy career as a minister suggests a familiarity with the Victorian government’s Code of Conduct, which specifically states ministers must “take all reasonable steps to ensure that they do not knowingly mislead the public or the Parliament”.
Allan’s defence against the opposition’s claims that she misled parliament is that at that time, 9.05am on June 13, “there have been no decisions or discussions about other alternatives” than hosting the Games.
That’s one interpretation. But given Allan was told the cost would nearly double, federal money wasn’t forthcoming, and the department had been specifically asked to “explore opportunities to reduce costs”, it’s safe to assume she knew things weren’t exactly going to plan.
Premier Jacinta Allan yesterday with Harriet Shing, Victoria’s new housing minister.Credit: NCA NewsWire
New revelations on Monday now present further hurdles to Allan’s defence.
Evidence from Allen Garner, the former chief executive of the Office of the Commonwealth Games, told the upper house inquiry that he had regularly briefed Allan and Housing Minister Harriet Shing, who was responsible for the Games’ legacy, every few weeks about increasing costs.
Which brings us to Shing, who is also standing by her June 8 evidence. When specifically asked how much of the Games’ budget would be spent on legacy projects for Victoria, she responded, “the $2.6 billion that is in the 2022–23 budget, is for the entire Games”.
In this post-truth era, and with a growing cynicism towards politicians, it’s important to remember that when a Cabinet minister speaks we are still entitled to assume they aren’t avoiding the truth.
For voters, it’s likely that the government’s most memorable offence will be the embarrassment of cancelling the Games, not who knew what, when.
But that doesn’t ignore the annoying principle of ministerial accountability, even for trivial matters.
Remember Barry O’Farrell quit for misleading a corruption tribunal about receiving a $3000 bottle of plonk.
It seems likely that the Commonwealth Games saga will pass without any political fatalities, aided by the abysmal performance of the majority of members of the upper house committee supposedly probing the cancellation.
All aside from David Davis and David Limbrick, who seem to be the only two committed to finding out the truth.
Annika Smethurst is state political editor.
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