ICAC Gladys Berejiklian probe: Bureaucrats’ gun club audit in 2018

Corruption allegations were previously made to ICAC about the $5.5m gun club project at the centre of the hearings into Gladys Berejiklian.

Bombshell secret government documents reveal corruption allegations had previously been made to ICAC in 2018 about the controversial $5.5 million gun club project now at the centre of next week’s hearings into the conduct of ­ex-premier Gladys Berejiklian.

But the watchdog had ­“advised they would not be ­investigating the matter”, the bureaucrats at Infrastructure NSW were told, so they ord­ered their own compliance audit of the project instead.

Gladys Berejiklian, then transport minister, and Daryl Maguire, then Wagga Wagga MP, in 2015, Picture: The Daily Advertiser/ACM

The advice was contained in an internal briefing note to Ms Berejiklian in November last year marked “internal consumption only not for publication”, uncovered by Greens MP David Shoebridge.

“The government has known for more than three years that serious concerns had been raised about this project, including with ICAC, but they never told the public,” Mr Shoebridge said.

When the audit was run it revealed irregularities, including progress claims not being submitted in time, a missing original contract and a half a million dollar cost over-run and a $96,103 “variance” in the invoices relating to “furniture purchased from China”.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption has already heard disgraced Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire ­allegedly received a secret kickback from the purchase of 1300 chairs from China by the company of which he was a ­silent director.

The earlier corruption allegation advice about ICAC was sent by a NSW Infrastructure media manager to the Department of Premier and Cabinet on November 30, 2020.

The email states: “In June 2018, Infrastructure NSW received a referral from Independent Commission Against Corruption, with allegations of corruption by the funding ­recipient in respect to its use of the Restart NSW grant for the project. The Commission ­advised that they would not be investigating the matter.”

The email added that Infrastructure NSW engaged an external consultant for a compliance audit in September, which came back saying that “in all material respects” the grant complied with the deeds, but flagged the irregularities.

Public hearings will begin on Monday into the awarding of the gun club grant as well as another grant to the Riverina Music Conservatorium, including whether Ms Berejik­lian had a conflict of interest over the decision. She has previously said the gun club grant went through normal “government processes” and “I don’t intervene in those processes”.

Maguire’s former business partner Phil Elliot, who ICAC heard bought the club’s chairs in China, said he did not wish to speak about the investigation and said “I’m not going to jail”.