Disgraced MP’s $400m Chinese trade centre fail
DISGRACED State MP Daryl Maguire was given financial help to visit China by a company he later promoted in a bid to set up a massive $400 million Chinese trade centre in NSW, documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph show.
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DISGRACED State MP Daryl Maguire was given financial help to visit China by a company he later promoted in a bid to set up a massive $400 million Chinese trade centre in Wagga, documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph show.
Mr Maguire faced increasing pressure last night to resign as the MP for Wagga, after he was caught on tape trying to make “mega money” on the sale of a Sydney property to a Chinese developer.
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Transport Minister Andrew Constance yesterday put pressure on Mr Maguire to quit and noted local Wagga residents are putting signs up asking Mr Maguire to go.
“I note the very strong response from the people of Wagga, in the past 72 hours, to Mr Maguire,” Mr Constance said.
“The key point for Mr Maguire is that his local constituency is saying to him, ‘get out’.”
And last night the state government said they would force Mr Maguire from his role as a parliamentary super fund trustee.
An investigation by The Daily Telegraph of Mr Maguire’s pecuniary interests stretching back over almost two decades reveals multiple connections to Chinese interests, including having received financial contributions from the Liaoning Provincial Government to help pay for his travel to China in 2009.
In August 2002 he visited China with financial help from a company registered at Martin Place called ACA Capital Investments Pty Ltd — which later tried to help to get a mammoth “trade centre” up and running in Wagga.
Mr Maguire spent a decade trying to help get the “international Chinese trade centre” -spanning 200,000 square metres of floor space - up and running, but Wagga Council said yesterday it withdraw its support for the proposal in 2013, due to “a lack of communication and progression from the proposed trade centre’s representatives”.
Yesterday Mr Maguire declined to answer questions about his trips, or the promotion of ACA Capital Investment’s plans for the Wagga Chinese trade centre.
A National Party source claimed last night the Liberal Party only wanted to keep Mr Maguire in the seat until the by-election window closed later this year - in order to lock the Nationals out of Wagga.
“They know that if we go to a by-election - especially now that the Liberal brand is damaged in Wagga - if we went to the polls in a three-cornered contest the Nationals would hose it in,” the source said.
But by convention, by elections usually do not occur within six months of a general election, due for March next year.
He said the Liberal Party had Mr Maguire “wrapped up in cotton wool” to keep him in the seat of Wagga until the window of opportunity closes around November this year.
“They’re not going to keep him there until the election - he will resign once the by-election shuts and it’s purely to keep the Nats out of the seat.”
Mr Maguire also received help for a trip to China from the All China Youth Federation in May 2002, disclosures to the NSW State Parliament Legislative Assembly show.
Mr Maguire has also come under fire for helping Chinese Communist Party propaganda on Tibet by hosting a press conference inside NSW parliament on May 30, 2013 with a key United Front official from China, a powerful Chinese Communist Party organisation.
On his most recent disclosures, in February this year, Mr Maguire listed he was chairman patron of the Australian Business Trade Centre in Shanghai and the Schenzen Asia Pacific Commercial Development Association.
Mr Maguire also owns four properties with his wife Maureen and one property as the sole owner.
He stepped down on 1 December 2017 from a family run company, Maguire Trading, of which he was a director of with his wife.