Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews concedes business case for axed 2026 Commonwealth Games was 'hardly the greatest piece of work'

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews has admitted that the business case and financial estimates for the cancelled 2026 Commonwealth Games was "hardly the greatest piece of work ever done".

Premier Andrews was speaking following the release of documents showing the cost of hosting the Commonwealth Games in regional centres across Victoria more than doubled between April 2022 and July 2023.

Premier Andrews (pictured) said the business case was "hardly the greatest piece of work", because "the estimates are a long way from what the costs were going to be."

The documents showed that cost of hosting the Commonwealth Games rose from $2.5 billion in April 2022 to $7 billion in July 2023, way in excess of original estimates.

The business case was prepared with input from the Victorian Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions; Visit Victoria, the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance and consultancy firms EY, MI Associates and DHW Ludus.

As reported by Guardian Australia, the originally proposed business case also revealed an estimated benefit-cost-ratio of between 0.7 and 1.6, meaning that for every dollar invested by the Victorian Government it would receive a return of between $0.70 and $1.60.

With the Victorian Government having last month relinquished hosting of the Games, at the end of last week it reached an agreement to pay $380 million to the Commonwealth Games Federation, Commonwealth Games Federation Partnerships and Commonwealth Games Australia to settle all disputes arising from the cancellation of the event.

Premier Andrews declined to divulge the names of those who did the work, but explained "I’m not for a moment suggesting that people didn’t do their best” adding "I’m not for a moment suggesting that every single thing that affected these costs was foreseeable and ought to have been included. That would be unfair to say.

"But in any event, we are in a situation where we either proceed and have to take money from hospitals and schools and heaven knows where else to run a $7 billion 12-day sporting event or we have a year-long global legal action or we have a settlement and we close this matter.

"The third option is what we have delivered."

Premier Andrews had earlier declined to give evidence to a Federal Senate inquiry into the event’s cancellation.

The inquiry was originally set up by a Senate committee to assess Australia’s preparations to host the Games alongside the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics.