Why did she stay with him? ICAC’s damning verdict on Berejiklian’s romance

Why did she stay? It was one of the great mysteries of the Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire revelations, and a question unlikely ever to be fully answered in the public domain.

Maguire admitted to the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Friday, July 13, 2018, he had tried to make money by setting up property developers with investors, particularly large Chinese firms.

The corruption watchdog was scathing about Gladys Berejiklian’s motived for staying with Maguire and keeping the whole thing a secret.Credit: SMH

That afternoon, Berejiklian effectively sacked Maguire as a parliamentary secretary, telling him “you’ll have to resign”. Liberal Party director Chris Stone also demanded Maguire quit the party, which he promptly did.

And that weekend, Berejiklian issued a public statement expressing her deep disappointment in Maguire, urging him to “think carefully as to whether he can effectively represent the people of Wagga Wagga from here on in”.

Yet, the two remained romantically involved for another two years until September 2020, shortly before Operation Keppel’s first public hearings, at which Berejiklian was forced to reveal the (by then) former relationship.

In her submissions to the ICAC, Berejiklian contended that her ongoing relationship with Maguire was actually proof that she never suspected him of being corrupt. She was a “stickler” who cared a lot about probity, she said, and “as premier she simply would not have stayed in a relationship with someone she suspected of corruption”.

In its long-awaited findings, released on Thursday, the commission rejected that argument. Indeed, it marked Berejiklian down for staying entwined with Maguire and ending their relationship only when it was about to become public.

“Rather than being a point in her favour, [this] bespeaks a last-minute attempt on her part at damage control,” the ICAC concluded.

The commission noted Berejiklian stayed with Maguire after the tapped September 2017 phone call about a potential land deal at Badgerys Creek during which she told him: “I don’t need to know about that bit.”

Following another phone call on July 5, 2018, Berejiklian understood Maguire had been engaging with “dodgy” people, and asked him shrewd questions which appeared to indicate some suspicion. “Yet she did not walk away from the relationship,” the ICAC admonished.

Even after Maguire gave his public testimony eight days later, and fell on his sword, Berejiklian stayed in the relationship. She also lied to her chief of staff Sarah Cruickshank about the duration and nature of the relationship, the ICAC found, “knowing that if she revealed its true extent, Ms Cruickshank would have enquired into the question about whether Ms Berejiklian had complied with her conflict of interest obligations”.

In the days after sacking Maguire, Berejiklian took advice from him about his expulsion from Parliament and the subsequent Wagga Wagga byelection, “despite Ms Cruickshank and [senior staffer Brad] Burden telling her not to have anything to do with him”. He kept a key to her house.

Under examination in September 2021, Berejiklian was asked about her state of mind regarding Maguire’s behaviour following his admissions on July 13, 2018 – after which she was “incredibly distraught and upset” and sought his resignation. Did she – at that point – suspect Maguire had engaged in corrupt conduct?

Six times Berejiklian answered: “I didn’t know.” Each time, counsel assisting repeated the actual question, which was not whether she knew but whether she suspected. On the seventh time, she responded: “No.”

The commission was scathing about this testimony. Taking Berejiklian’s evidence as a whole, “it is, with regret, impossible not to conclude that she lied when she answered ‘no’ to counsel assisting’s last question”, the ICAC found.

The reasons Berejiklian gave for not reporting Maguire’s conduct were “evasive and obfuscatory”, the commission said. “They strained credulity, were inconsistent, circular, and at times bordered on the irrational.”

The real reason at play, the ICAC concluded, was to protect Maguire and ensure “the cloud he was under did not extend to herself”.

Ultimately, the ICAC found Berejiklian entered a “state of actual suspicion” about Maguire as far back as that September 2017 phone call. Her suspicions widened on July 5, 2018, and again some days later. Her failure to act on those suspicions led the commission to find her seriously corrupt.

The watchdog cannot hope to comprehensively know or understand why Berejiklian remained romantically involved with Maguire. But it posits that by staying in a relationship she had already kept secret for four or more years, she was able to preserve the status quo – and her job.

“To reveal that she had been in a relationship for four or more years with someone publicly suspected of corrupt conduct, and whom she had come to suspect of corrupt conduct, would be anathema to her, and most probably be the death of her political career,” the ICAC concluded.

“The less anyone, not least the commission, knew about the relationship, the better from Ms Berejiklian’s point of view in terms of avoiding the cloud, which had engulfed [Maguire], doing the same to her.”

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