Australian state of Victoria cancels event over funding issues

The Australian state of Victoria has cancelled the 2026 Commonwealth Games it was supposed to be hosting due to a lack of funding.

Victoria’s leader, Daniel Andrews, said he was not prepared to spend up to $7bn (£3.6 billion) on a “12-day sporting event”.

He said: “Last year when the Commonwealth Games authorities approached us and needed someone to step in to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games, as a state we were happy to help out, but of course not at any price.

He continued: “I’ve made a lot of difficult decisions in this job, this is not one of them.

“We don’t just make popular decisions, we do what’s right and it would simply be wrong.”

The original budget for the games was estimated to be around $2.6bn (£1.3 billion). Mr Andrews said the amount was “twice the estimated economic benefit the Games would bring our state, and said they would instead “build at least 1,300 new social and affordable housing homes in regional Victoria.

Mr Andrews said they have had “cordiale discussions” with the Commonwealth authorities in London and will continue discussions with them on Tuesday morning.

He added: “It is not appropriate and it is against the interest of taxpayers for me to speculate and conduct a negotiation with people on the other side of the world at a press conference here today.

“In the meantime we are going to let our team that are in London work through these issues.”

Mr Andrews said the estimates were “clearly under the actual cost”.

The Victorian state government are instead going to use the money budgeted to improve sporting complexes and housing in regional Victoria.

The 2026 Commonwealth Games were set to be held in regional Victoria across towns like Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat, Gippsland and Shepparton.