I don’t give the proverbial rat’s arse about the Commonwealth Games. It is a second-rate sportsfest, whose only value is that Australia is a big fish in a pond of sporting mediocrity, and Australians (and TV broadcasters) love the rush of gold medals a Commonwealth Games inevitably brings.

But I, and most Victorians, very much give a rat’s about politicians keeping their promises and honouring their word.

On Tuesday, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews spectacularly exploded his biggest political asset: trust.

Whatever you can say about Andrews, his ability to bulldoze through whatever he wants, and hang the expense, has been a political and electoral winner for him. He delivered, and his sins were electorally forgiven.

Having last year successfully bid for the Commonwealth Games with a beguiling promise to turn regional Victoria into one vast games venue, on Tuesday Andrews pulled out, blaming cost overruns four times the original cost estimate.

Not that the government gave any detailed breakdowns of this cost, mind you: it only has to be said, it seems, and yea, verily it is the truth.

That Andrews made this announcement with next to no notice to the UK-based Commonwealth Games Federation and its Australian affiliate, and brazenly went on to dismiss the Games as a sporting event in even more disparaging terms than mine, is a measure of Andrews the man as much as Andrews the politician.

That the Labor government, whose entire infrastructure record is a litany of cost blowouts and bungled business cases, could blame everyone but themselves for this fiasco was as typical as it was disgusting.

Thanks to Daniel Andrews and his Labor ship of fools, Victoria’s international reputation as a reliable and honourable business partner has been trashed beyond recognition. This decision affects not only Victoria and Australia, but the whole of the British Commonwealth. It confirms what the smart money has known for years: doing business with Andrews’ government is an extreme sovereign risk. Don’t do it.

In my view, it’s now clear that last year’s Games bid was a fingers-crossed-behind-the-back bid, intended only for shoring up support for Labor in regional marginal seats, especially around Ballarat, Bendigo, and Geelong. Once Labor had the November 2022 election in the bag, the government had no further need for the Commonwealth Games, and it appears they were ready to dump them at the first justifiable opportunity – or just dump them as has been done.

It is sleazy and cynical. It is Labor in the raw.

Most importantly for Andrews’ pathetically struggling political opponents, however, the Premier’s Commonwealth Games fiasco gives some hope of seeing the back of him.

A politician’s greatest asset is trust. If people trust him to deliver and keep his word, they are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as Victorian voters did with Andrews, notwithstanding everything the Labor government actually did to them in the blighted Covid years, when they took pride in locking down Victorians and turning Melbourne into a fearful ghost town.

But in one stroke on Tuesday, Andrews and Labor destroyed that trust factor for good. Who, even their fanatical Twitter cheerleaders, can now believe a word they say?

Daniel Andrews does not live on the same planet as personal honour and political trust: never has.

Victoria’s Labor government is an outfit of political shonks and shysters of the first order. If people refused to see it before, they certainly do now. This cynical announcement merely confirms the long-standing reality, in spectacular fashion.

The Victorian Opposition should tar and feather the government, and run the Labor leader out of town over this decision. But whether they can is doubtful, given they prove time and again that the Coalition can’t run a chook raffle, let alone offer an alternative and honourable government to Victorians.

They won’t of course. They’re not up to the job. But the good news for Victorians is that, after Tuesday, it’s suddenly clear that the persistent rumours of Andrews checking out of Melbourne’s Treasury Place by Christmas look on the money.

Terry Barnes writes the Spectator Australia’s Morning Double Shot newsletter.