Walsh added that regional roads will “continue to get worse” despite almost $3 billion being set aside for roads over the next decade, insisting that maintenance funding had been slashed by 45 per cent since 2020.
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Two new venues will need to be built in Geelong to host Commonwealth Games aquatic events, gymnastics and weightlifting. Geelong is due to host nine sports in total, including golf, hockey, rowing, cricket, triathlon and coastal rowing.
In Ballarat, new warm-up facilities are to be built at the local showgrounds – alongside an upgrade to Eureka Stadium – as the regional city prepares to host athletics, boxing and mountain bike events.
Bendigo will host basketball, netball, track cycling, lawn bowls, table tennis and squash. Bendigo will not receive new venues, but some existing ones will be upgraded.
Badminton, cricket, road cycling, rugby and shooting will be held in Gippsland.
The Games will bring more than 100,000 visitors each to Geelong and Ballarat, 50,000 to Bendigo and 25,000 to Gippsland, according to state government modelling.
The Albanese government has so far declined to allocate any money to the $2.6 billion Games. This month’s federal budget stated that the financial implications of any Commonwealth support were “not quantifiable at this time”.
Latrobe City mayor Kellie O’Callaghan said it remained unclear how much her council would be asked to contribute to hosting the Games.
“We’re really clear there are limits on what we’re able to contribute anyway,” she said.
Ballarat mayor Des Hudson said he was not concerned about the budget’s lack of specific funding commitments for the Commonwealth Games. However, he said his council was also not in a position to cough up large sums of its own cash for the event.
“This [hosting Games events] is not part of our 10-year financial plan,” he said.
Elsewhere in Tuesday’s state budget, the Andrews government spruiked $601 million for 23 new, high-speed V/Line trains and $219 million for almost 200 extra weekend services.
The Rochester and Heathcote SES hubs will also be rebuilt to the tune of $23 million. However, all of this money was already flagged in Labor’s pre-election costings.
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