In April 2022, the Victorian government signed the contract to host the Commonwealth Games in regional Victoria based on an expected gross cost of around $2.6 billion.

In July 2023, the government decided that the Games no longer represented value for money and withdrew. It said the cost of hosting had increased to more than $6 billion.

There is significant public interest in understanding the amount of public money spent on the Games, the reasons for the increased cost and the quality of advice the public service gave to the government.

Key findings:

• The total cost of the Games to Victorians is over $589 million. 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 cost estimate for the Games that the government publicly released in August 2023 of $6.9 billion was overstated and not transparent. It added significant amounts for industrial relations and cost escalation risks. But it did not disclose that the budget already included $1 billion in contingency allowances to cover these and other cost risks.