Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games. In fact, I'm pleased that Premier Dan Andrews had the foresight to cancel the games and invest the money in the community where it is actually needed. I wish other premiers had the guts to do the same thing for other sporting events such as the Brisbane Olympics. Spending billions of dollars on a 12-day sporting event is not tenable when you have people sleeping on the street or people who have to choose between heating their homes and eating. This money would be much better spent on health, housing, education, on providing infrastructure, fixing roads or on investing in our regions. I could go on with other areas where it could be better spent.

Hosting the Commonwealth Games or the Olympics does not bring all the benefits that people claim. The boost to tourism is not to a scale that's needed to justify the spend. These events notoriously run over budget and, in many cases, the locals don't want them there. The most extreme example is the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal. Montreal actually ended up paying off the debt in 2006 that they incurred by putting on this event in 1976. That is 40 years that it took them to pay off the debt from putting on the Montreal Olympics, 40 years of money being taken away from critical government infrastructure and services. While this is obviously an example of things going very wrong, this event marked a new era for big sporting events such as the Commonwealth Games, the Olympics or, in fact, the FIFA World Cup. To host these sporting events, bids became bigger and bigger, more money needed to be spent and more infrastructure was promised around these events. This is a gamble that rarely pays off. In 2010, India budgeted $250 million for the Commonwealth Games, and that actually ended up costing them $11 billion.

So I think it was a very wise move on the part of the Victorian government to quit while they were ahead and spend this money where it was actually needed the most. Events like this are important. It is an opportunity for unity and for Australians to cheer on their favourite athletes; however, the suggestion that this cancellation damages our international sovereignty is a bit of a joke, and I'm not going to stand here and be lectured by those opposite and others about international sovereignty and damage to it. We are in a cost-of-living crisis and I'm pleased that no other state or territory government has chosen to put education, housing or health funding at risk or on the backburner for the Commonwealth Games.