Commonwealth Games 2026: Daniel Andrews has condemned …
Commonwealth Games 2026: Daniel Andrews has condemned Victoria to being a national disgrace by cancelling the event, writes WAYNE FLOWER
- Premier Daniel Andrews has cancelled the Commonwealth Games
- Follows pause on Melbourne's airport rail plans
- Public transport costs have been increased
- Scrapping Melbourne's East West Link road project topped $1.1 billion
Victorians have every right to be embarrassed by the abrupt cancellation of the Commonwealth Games and the ensuing international humiliation, but they ought not be surprised.
The 2026 Games cancellation is just the latest example of ambitious and colossally expensive Victorian projects that have been promised but then abandoned or significantly downgraded as the Premier's fetish for Big Government plans collide head-on with fiscal reality.
Add the Commonwealth Games to the East-West Link road project and the Melbourne[2] to Airport rail line that this state government has cancelled.
Then there was the vanished promise of 4000 extra ICU beds during Covid, the local public health units announced during the pandemic but which now has ever-diminishing amounts of funding.
These projects and others have fallen victim to the burgeoning state debt which is forecast to reach $171 billion in 2026.27.
Despite that, other grandiose projects are going ahead - for now: the $35 billion new rail loop linking the outer suburbs (despite little by way of customer demand) and the West Gate tunnel for which costs have doubled to $10billion and is already eight years late and counting.
Everyone sensed the end of 'Dictator Dan's' record-breaking Covid lockdown was only the start of years of misery ahead.
He came in like a wrecking ball: Dan Andrews has turned Victoria into a basketcase
Mr Andrews made it clear he had little issue in dumping huge amounts of Victorian taxpayer coin down the drain before he was even voted in.
The cost to taxpayers of scrapping Melbourne's East West Link road project cost Victorians $1.1 billion.
Daniel Andrews told Victorians the decision to dump the games was 'easy'.
The West Gate Tunnel suffered a massive $4.7 billion blowout
It was an election promise Victorian voters embraced, allowing Mr Andrews to topple the Liberal Government in 2014.
The East West Connect consortium was contracted to build the 18-kilometre road connecting the Eastern Freeway at Hoddle Street to CityLink, the Port of Melbourne and on to the Western Ring Road.
Along with many a political promise, it never happened after Labor took control.
Fast forward to 2022 and Victorians again voted Mr Andrews back into power despite enduring the longest Covid-19 lockdown in the history of mankind.
So weak had the bickering opposition become that Mr Andrews strolled to election victory despite his name continuing to pop up in various Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission investigations.
In 2020, Mr Andrews told Victorians - still trapped within their homes in lockdown - that Victoria would benefit from a 'massive $1.3 billion injection to quickly establish an extra 4000 ICU beds'.
The cash was earmarked in response to the Covid pandemic, which was at that point tearing through the state, with 968 new cases confirmed on the same day the announcement was released.
Daily Mail Australia asked the Premier's office numerous times about the pledge in the years that followed, but has never got a response.
The cost of public transport hot $10 for a daily ticket this year
The Games cancellation comes just months after the Premier announced he was pulling the rug from under plans to belatedly build a rail link to Melbourne Airport.
To this day - and seemingly for many more to come - anyone catching a plane out of Melbourne has the choice of either a very large taxi or Uber fare, sharing a cramped bus or paying through the nose for parking.
In May, hundreds of tradespeople were seconded to other projects after the Andrews Government confirmed Melbourne Airport Rail Link construction would be paused.
Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan ended weeks of speculation by confirming work would be temporarily halted on the $13 billion Airport Rail Link, as well as upgrades of Clyde, McGregor and Racecourse roads.
'Airport rail is basic infrastructure in almost every major city around Australia and the world, yet in Victoria, we just can’t seem to get it done,' Deputy Opposition Leader David Southwick said at the time
'There can be no more excuses. The money for this project is available and the Andrews government should be getting on with delivering this important project.'
Melbourne still doesn't have a rail link to its airport
The following month, Victorians were left gobsmacked when it was reported Mr Andrews had slashed future funding for one of its most significant pandemic-era reforms: the local public health units established at the height of the COVID-19 crisis to rebuild the state’s public health capacity and defence against infectious disease.
Government funding for the units would shrink from about $80 million this financial year to $55 million in 2023-24 and further reduce to $47 million in 2024-25, The Age[3] reported in June.
The Public Health Association of Australia said the funding decision was short-sighted and disappointing, while senior figures within Victoria’s Department of Health, speaking anonymously to discuss budget matters, said it sent a terrible message about the importance of public and preventative health.
In April, the publication revealed that 45 community health services in Victoria were told to brace themselves for cuts of up to 15 per cent, which were mostly targeted at preventative programs such as vaping and obesity.
Less the a month ago, Victorians learnt hopping on a train or tram was also going to cost them more.
From July, daily Myki fares for travel on Victorian public transport rose almost a dollar to $10 a day.
The daily fare went from $9.20 to $10, while the single fare went from $4.60 to $5.
It represented an 8.7 per cent increase, which is more than the inflation rate.
Premier Daniel Andrews dumped the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday
Meanwhile, Victoria’s most expensive public transport construction contract in history is about to be inked, paving the way for major works on the $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop.
The project will connect Cheltenham to Box Hill via a new 26km underground line.
The rail line - for which there was never any public demand - was slammed as 'a waste of money' by the opposition, which had promised in its election campaign to redirect $8.7 billion of state funding for the project to Victoria’s struggling health system.
Whether the project is ever actually completed is anyone's guess, with Melburnians living in the west still coping with traffic hell years after the West Gate Tunnel project was supposed to make life easier.
The State Budget revealed in May a massive $4.7 billion blowout to the West Gate Tunnel – which will now cost $10.2 billion and be delivered eight years late.
But while Victorians struggle to put food on the table, find a roof to sleep under and pay for heating this winter, they were no doubt buoyed last month by the announcement that Mr Andrews would get a pay rise.
Victorian MPs received a 3.5 per cent pay rise on July 1, which boosted the pay of backbench MPs to almost $200,000 and Mr Andrews’ pay to more than $481,000.
Mr Andrews said on Tuesday the decision to scrap the Games was 'easy' to make.
It's the kind of comment that makes ordinary Victorians' blood boil.
The cost of the Commonwealth Games dumping so far remains a secret, but it won't remain that way.
'Cancelled Comm Games, slashed public health funding, paused airport rail - meanwhile pay rise to politicians ... Going great,' one Victorian commented on Mr Andrews' track record on Tuesday.