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It’s a script that would have seemed far-fetched for The Games – the satirical mockumentary series that followed bumbling bureaucrats attempting to deliver the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Within the space of 18 months, a debt-burned state signed on to host the Commonwealth Games, promising a “Games like no other”, before discovering it was a little out of our price range.

Victorian Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan, Minister for Regional Development Harriet Shing and Premier Daniel Andrews announcing the Commonwealth Games are not going ahead.Credit: James Ross

An event that other countries such as Jamaica and India have managed to deliver.

The troubled Delhi games even went ahead despite a mass walkout of 20,000 volunteers a week before the event and after a South African athlete discovered a snake in her bed.

But Victoria’s net debt – which will be $135.4 billion this financial year, rising to $171.4 billion by 2027 – was a hurdle the government couldn’t clear.

The May budget presented the government with a chance to do some cost-cutting; an opportunity it didn't take.

The government had hoped it could spend $2.6 billion, but that estimate wasn’t even close to the $6 to $7 billion Premier Daniel Andrews now says is needed to deliver a major sporting event in provincial towns.

In a surprise to no one – except, it seems, the Andrews government – taxpayers were going to have to stump up quite a bit of cash to put on the Games in regional towns during a cost-of-living crisis.

What has come as a surprise is that the government said it attempted to reduce the number of sports on offer at the Commonwealth Games in 2026 in an effort to bring down costs.

Did bureaucrats really tally up the cost of asking the badminton players to pick up their racquets and shuttlecocks and jog on? Would it be cheaper if we ditched judo?

This is the Andrews government version of The Games episode in which the organising team discovers the 100-metre track is technically 94 metres long.

In reality, Victorian has been left red-faced. The Games won’t be held in Victoria, and are at real risk of not going ahead at all. The government has broken an election promise and let down regional Victorians. All due to their own financial mismanagement.

Victoria has now sent negotiators to London to try to extricate us from the contract for the best price.

We can only hope they do a better job than the team the Andrews government used to get out of the cancelled East-West link contract.

Andrews promised a “Games like no other” – and that’s what he’s delivered.

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