SO much for a traditional honeymoon period for new Premier Jacinta Allan.
Truth is, the honeymoon never started. Only two weeks into her term, she is grappling with the ongoing nightmare that is the Commonwealth Games debacle.
Ms Allan refused to front an inquiry into the Games cancellation, even though she was the minister responsible for delivering the much-vaunted regional event.
It has become a common theme, as Ms Allan also dodged questions under heavy fire in Parliament last week.
Everybody in regional Victoria deserves answers, not arrogant stone-walling.
Alarmingly, it is now becoming clear Ms Allan and others knew far more about Games costs blowouts than they let on.
There were revelations in The Age on Monday that Allan was warned four months before the pin was officially pulled on the Games that almost $2 billion extra would be required to host the event in five regional cities throughout Victoria.
Yet we were strung along, and told everything was going swimmingly. In the end, it was a hoax.
As a regional MP, and a Bendigo resident, you’d expect her to champion regional cities.
Instead, she snubbed them, cruelly taking them along for a ride that was never going to have a happy ending.
Peter Walsh
Member for Murray Plains
Leader of The Nationals
