Jeff Kennett says he was “hoodwinked” into holding one of Victoria’s first state funerals for someone who wasn’t a government figure and state funerals should be reigned in or stopped altogether.

In the wake of revelations that Shane Warne’s state memorial service cost taxpayers $1.6 million, the former premier says it’s time to curtail state services.

“You go and speak to some of those people who are still waiting for their houses to be built after the floods or the fires many years ago, and when you spend $1.6 million on a funeral for a person — forget who it is — who has already been highly successful and been rewarded by their country with honours etcetera, you’ve got to ask yourself ‘Is that an appropriate expenditure of public money?’,” he told Tony Jones, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

Press PLAY below to hear how Jeff Kennett was ‘hoodwinked’ + why he opposes state funerals

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