At a time when the big four accounting firms are under the pump for over-charging government clients, Ernst & Young, now known as EY, stand by their calculations on how much the Victorian Commonwealth Games would cost. And it’s the business reaction to Premier Dan Andrews’ observation that it was “hardly the greatest piece of work.”

On the other hand, Dan Andrews as a political master is unquestionably a “piece of work”, and it’s going to be interesting how he spins this embarrassing episode in Australia’s illustrious sporting history.

In case you’ve forgotten, the Victorian Government once said the Games would cost $2.5 billion. With post-pandemic and the inflation that followed, it was speculated that the new cost would be $7 billion!

Before looking at who’s right — Dan the Man or a bunch of high-end bean counters — let’s just remember that the Victorian Government has decided to dump something that we usually win! The Commonwealth Games is also a great preparation for the Olympics, the main game for many of our world class athletes —!

Apart from the international reputational damage, there are hundreds of young Australians who’ve got up early in the mornings and slogged it out doing the hard stuff that we spectators never try, and then they provide us with the viewer satisfaction when they win or try hard to win.

As an economist, I can understand where Dan Andrews is coming from, if the blowout in costs was as big as he has said. But if it’s an exaggeration, then he should be pilloried. The only problem we have to work out if Dan was being truthful or not gets down to whether we believe EY or one of the greatest spin doctors in Aussie history.

Yesterday, there was a federal inquiry armed with senators, where EY’s man explained how it had costed events such as the Grand Prix in Melbourne and had basically used the templates that had worked in the past. “We stand by the work we did to assist with the development of the business case,” said EY partner, Dean Yates.

By the way, theguardian.com, tells us that EY won’t reveal what it was paid because it is ‘client confidential’ information, and there was a lot more confidential information connected to all this.

“Yates said the consulting firm’s ability to provide a thorough cost estimate of the Games had been constrained by the Victorian government wanting to keep early discussions about the games confidential,” theguardian.com reported.

He added: “Given the confidential nature of this project, the discussions were confined to a core project team of key stakeholders and did not involve sporting organisations, venue operators and other government departments or the Commonwealth government.”

What is an interesting revelation is that since Dan dumped the Games, the Federal government has been depicted as being willing to put $200 million up for the event. And since the decision to KO the event, the Andrews Government has paid $380 million to Games organisers as compensation.

One day the true story of who’s telling pork pies over the real cost blowout will seep out. When questioned about how EY found out about the $7.5 billion blowout in the Games budget, it was revealed that the Victorian Premier announced it! It seems that EY wasn’t aware of the blowout until that announcement!

I’m not taking sides here, but Dan Andrews will go down in political history as a gold medal winner in the art of political spinning.