Ex-Commonwealth Games ministers to appear at inquiry

Mr Leane was appointed the inaugural minister of the now-abolished portfolio in June last year after Victoria was awarded the Games.

He was replaced by Ms Shing in December after being dumped from cabinet and made upper house Speaker as part of a post-election ministry shake-up.

Inquiry chair David Limbrick said it was important to hear directly from both MPs about their knowledge of cost blowouts that led to the decision to cancel the event.

"Many regional communities were promised infrastructure," he said.

Victoria pulled the pin on hosting the Games across regional areas in July, citing its original estimated cost of $2.6 billion blowing out to between $6 billion to $7 billion.

The government later agreed to pay $380 million in compensation to Games bodies to break its contract.

Premier Jacinta Allan, who was the minister in charge of delivering the Games, is refusing to front the inquiry and it is powerless to compel her as she is a lower house MP.

The inquiry has heard she was briefed in March on revised cost estimates for the Games and rejected an updated budget request of $4.5 billion in April, telling bureaucrats to explore cutting costs.

Commonwealth Games Australia chief executive Craig Phillips told the inquiry this week that he and other event officials got the impression the budget would be available in a meeting with Ms Allan in April.

In response, the premier said a key feature of the meeting was to discuss the national body's federal budget submission.

"We were continuing to work through how to best deliver the Games in line with the agreement that we had signed," Ms Allan told reporters on Tuesday.

"We were working through a range of options at that point in time and no final decisions had been made."

The Victorian government did not entertain moving the Games to Melbourne as it would have nullified the legacy benefits to sports venues, transport infrastructure and housing from hosting events regionally, Ms Allan said.