Bendigo council to miss Senate Commonwealth Games inquiry

It comes despite Geelong mayor Cr Trent Sullivan outlining his council's long-held concerns at the Senate's inquiry into Australia's preparedness to host Commonwealth, Olympic and Paralympic Games including a letter to the premier dated to mid-2023.

"These concerns all went unanswered and they turned [out] to be well-founded because weeks later the Games were cancelled," he told the inquiry.

Bendigo's council will not give evidence despite being a key host city, making it a notable absence when senators hear testimony at the Quality Lakeside Hotel, across the road from Lake Weeroona, on Tuesday, August 29.

The council declined an invitation because it felt it was not in a position to comment on Victoria's preparedness to host the Games, acting strategy and growth director Andrew Cooney told the Bendigo Advertiser.

"We were still confirming what our role was going to be, up and until the Games were cancelled," he said.

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Asked whether it would be worth sharing experiences regardless to help planning for Brisbane's 2032 Olympics and Paralympics, Mr Cooney said he was not aware that was the scope of the inquiry but that the council would likely be unable to give an informed insight.

"Again, we didn't have confirmation about what our role was. That was a work in progress and was all pretty new, when the inquiry had commenced," he said.

"It was pretty difficult for council to make submissions when we weren't sure what our role was."

The council had no concerns an inquiry appearance would compromise its relationship with the state government, Mr Cooney said, and Spring Street had no conversations or correspondence about the matter.

Geelong's mayor told the inquiry on July 28 his council was increasingly concerned about the bill it might have had to foot as the Games developed.

Cr Sullivan said Geelong had entered very early discussions in early 2023 about potential council spending on the Games, which would have been "well in excess" of what his council could have provided.

"I heard they could be as high as $50 million," Cr Sullivan said.

That was far more than the $15-$20 million government bureaucrats estimated councils would need to contribute. That figures was in a business case put to senior state political leaders in 2022 before Victoria decided to host the Games.

Bendigo's council has previously gone on the record saying it was not concerned about its potential spends.

"That wasn't Bendigo's experience, we've been supportive of it all the way through," mayor Andrea Metcalf said on the day the Games were cancelled.

"We don't have a lot of debt as a city and would have expected to make a contribution to legacy builds."

It is too early to confirm what information Bendigo's council would share with other inquiries into the Games' collapse, including a bipartisan Victorian upper house inquiry.

A separate Victorian Auditor General's Office inquiry has flagged that it will seek information from Bendigo as it delves into the costs of securing, planning for and exiting the Games.

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"How much of that will be for council and how much will be for government is still to come through," Mr Cooney said.

The government cancelled the Games in July citing apparent cost blowouts of billions of dollars. Its leaders have so far declined to give testimony to the senate inquiry but have been cooperating with the Auditor General's Office investigation.

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