Gladys Berejiklian acted corruptly, long-awaited ICAC report finds

Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian engaged in serious corrupt conduct and breached the public’s trust through her secret relationship with now-disgraced ex-MP Daryl Maguire.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption’s (ICAC) bombshell findings end a wait of almost two years for a ruling on Berejiklian’s conduct while she was in a secret relationship with Maguire.

However, despite the damning findings, Berejiklian on Thursday said her legal team was examining the report but maintained that she had always “worked my hardest in the public interest”.

“Nothing in this report demonstrates otherwise,” Berejiklian said in a statement. “Thank you to the members of the public for their incredible support. This will always sustain me.”

In the expansive two-volume report, the ICAC found that Berejiklian engaged in “serious corrupt conduct by breaching public trust” through the awarding of grants that Maguire had personally lobbied for “without disclosing her close personal relationship” with the then-Wagga Wagga MP.

The report found Berejiklian took steps to award grants pushed by Maguire based on a “desire on her part to maintain or advance” her relationship with him.

Berejiklian’s conflict could “objectively have the potential to influence the performance of her public duty”, the ICAC found. The then-premier “took a number of actions” which led to the awarding of a $5.5 million grant to a Wagga Wagga gun club, “in circumstances where she knew that Mr Maguire was its principal proponent”. It found she also breached the public trust by advancing another $10 million grant to a conservatorium of music in Wagga.

It also found she engaged in serious corrupt conduct by “refusing to discharge her duty” to report her “suspicion” that Maguire “engaged in activities which concerned, or might have concerned, corrupt conduct”.

“The report notes that Ms Berejiklian must have known that she was not entitled to refuse to exercise her official functions for her own private benefit, or for the benefit of Mr Maguire,” the ICAC said in a statement.

“To do so to conceal conduct she suspected concerned, or might have concerned, corrupt conduct on the part of Mr Maguire, another member of Parliament, both to protect herself and him from the commission exercising its investigative powers was grave misconduct.

Former premier Gladys Berejiklian arrives at the ICAC in October 2021.Credit: Renee Nowytarger

“It undermined the high standards of probity that are sought to be achieved by the ministerial code which, as premier, Ms Berejiklian substantially administered.”

However, despite the findings, the ICAC will not seek her criminal prosecution. It said it did not believe that “consideration should be given to obtaining the advice of the DPP with respect to the prosecution of Ms Berejiklian for any offence”.

The ICAC also made serious corrupt findings against Maguire, finding he “misused his role as an MP to advance his own financial interests, as well as the commercial interests of his associates”.

One of those related to an alleged cash-for-visa scheme for which he is currently facing criminal charges.

The ICAC recommended the DPP consider the further prosecution of Maguire and two of his business associates.

The report made 18 recommendations to address the codes of conduct governing MPs, saying its “ultimate goal is to improve and enhance the reputation of the NSW parliamentary system to the betterment of the people of NSW through the adoption of the recommendations”.

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman praised Berejiklian on Thursday, saying she led the state with “strength and determination through the most challenging conditions since the Second World War”.

Speakman said he would give closer consideration to the report but his early observations were that his former leader had not broken the law.

“The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) does not suggest that there has been any arguable breach of the criminal law by the actions it investigated by Ms Berejiklian nor was it suggested in the inquiry that Ms Berejiklian received any personal financial benefit,” Speakman said in a statement.

“The delays in providing a report have been unacceptable and should not be allowed to occur again. Our community deserves a timelier resolution of investigations undertaken by ICAC, especially when they concern the senior leadership of our state.”

Speakman was, however, scathing of Berejiklian’s former boyfriend. “Daryl Maguire’s actions were a reprehensible abuse of his position,” Speakman said.

The explosive inquiry, which ended Berejiklian’s premiership in October 2021, was launched to investigate whether she had engaged in conduct that breached public trust when awarding government grants during a relationship with Maguire.

The long-awaited corruption report into Berejiklian’s conduct was due to be released in October last year, but the term of commissioner Ruth McColl, SC, was extended.

Berejiklian resigned abruptly as premier in October 2021 after the ICAC confirmed it was investigating whether she had engaged in conduct that breached public trust during her secret relationship with Maguire.

“Resigning ... is against every instinct of my wellbeing ... I love my job and serving the community, but I have been given no option following the statement,” she said at the time.

The first elected female premier of NSW, Berejiklian was the third Liberal leader to be forced to resign from the state’s top job amid an ICAC scandal, following Nick Greiner and Barry O’Farrell.

The former premier is now a senior executive with telecommunications company Optus.

Maguire quit NSW Parliament in July 2018 after a corruption inquiry exposed his attempts to broker property deals and seek commission on behalf of a Chinese developer.

The ICAC’s Operation Keppel probe in October last year examined whether Berejiklian breached public trust when she awarded grants to several community organisations in the NSW Riverina region between 2012 and 2018.

The inquiry heard taped phone calls between Berejiklian and Maguire during their five-year secret relationship.

It heard Berejiklian’s relationship with Maguire began in 2014 or 2015 and continued even after she asked for Maguire’s resignation in 2018. In his evidence to the ICAC, Maguire disclosed private details about their relationship, including that he would stay with Berejiklian and had a key to her house.

The ICAC focused on two multimillion-dollar grants – issued to a gun club and a music conservatorium – in Maguire’s electorate while the pair were in a relationship and Berejiklian was treasurer and later premier.

Berejiklian told the inquiry she completely rejected any assertion that her feelings for the man she once loved and hoped to marry affected her duty to the public.

“What I felt for him was completely separate to what I did in terms of executing my responsibilities and I stand by that ever so strongly,” she said.

Berejiklian told the inquiry she would still keep secret her five-year relationship with Maguire if she had her time again, insisting she did not feel it was “of sufficient standard or sufficient significance” to do so.

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