Mark Latham: Steps should have been taken to stop Daryl Maguire years ago

Warning signs about Daryl Maguire were evident a decade ago, and if something were done about him then things might have been different, writes Mark Latham.

The dogs were barking 10 years ago. Within months of the election of the NSW Liberal Government in 2011, its Member for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire, wrote to Planning Minister Brad Hazzard lobbying on behalf of a developer for a new ­lucrative project in Canterbury.

For those unfamiliar with the geography of NSW, Canterbury is an inner-west suburb of Sydney, 450km from the township of Wagga Wagga, domiciled on the Murrumbidgee River in the southern districts.

We don’t know what Mr Hazzard did in response to this very unusual, long-distance electoral representation.

Mark Latham says the Liberal party should have done something about Daryl Maguire years ago. Picture: Dylan Robinson

But here’s what he should have done: immediately phoned Mag­uire and said words to the effect of “Listen buster, after 16 years in Opposition we have just got back into government and one of your leading priorities is to lobby me about planning decisions in Canterbury? You must have 50 things that need to be done for Wagga, so how about you stick to those and never again send me a letter for something that is a five-hour drive from the people you actually represent.”

If the advice had been given and accepted, it would have saved the Liberals some trouble.

It would have sealed off a world of pain, as Maguire set about expanding his Canterbury interests into a new Western Sydney land development franchise, spanning from Cawdor to Badgerys Creek.

Maguire emerged as the ­Arthur Daley of Macquarie Street, seeking a ‘nice little earner’ from cash-for-visa schemes, Chinese investment commissions, United World Enterprises trade deals and an outfit called Gateway International, the equivalent of a $2-shop selling chairs, cutlery and beer coasters.

Daryl Maguire used his relationship with Gladys Berejiklian to his advantage.

As a parliamentary secretary, ­Maguire even visited Samoa to build a casino. The world was his oyster.

This novel politician-cum-shyster model might have disappeared aimlessly into history but for another of Maguire’s interests. Circa 2014 he began romancing a rising star of the Liberal Ministry, Gladys Berejiklian.

He had his own key to her North Shore home and his personal effects in her bathroom. When Maguire was in Sydney, they were in an ‘intimate personal relationship’, fitting the ­definitional requirement by which, under the Government’s Ministerial Code of Conduct, Berejiklian was obliged to declare the relationship and any conflict of interest arising therein.

In politics, there are more rumours about people than Covid. Yet remarkably, there was never any suggestion, based on rumour or fact, of a sexual relationship between Maguire and Berejiklian – until ICAC revealed its phone taps 12 months ago.

Prior to the revelation of their relationship there had been no rumours about Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire.

The ramifications for the NSW Liberal Party were massive. As one MP has pointed out: “Just imagine if the Maguire story had come out in the last (2019) election campaign, if ICAC had leaked or Maguire told a friend who told the media. We would have been sunk. Michael Daley would have been Premier.”

ICAC has announced new public hearings into Berejiklian’s undeclared conflicts of interest in relation to two Wagga Wagga grants. Several more have been uncovered by FOI processes in the NSW Legislative Council where I sit – a house of review doing its job. Upper house investigations show that in mid-2018 (when Mag­uire resigned from parliament, having been busted in Canterbury Council land scandals) Berejiklian was party to collecting further corruption allegations about her boyfriend from junior Government staffers and sending them to ICAC.

At no time did she tell her chief of staff, chief legal counsel or departmental secretary of her conflict of interest. Yet this is the behaviour parts of the Liberal Party and media are now defending, in their belief that Berejiklian should have stayed in office.

You will notice one thing in common among these barrackers: none of them has read any of the thousands of pages of ICAC and upper house ­investigative documents. They are not only blind to reality, they have no instinct or inclination to even inform themselves of the facts.

ICAC’s only sin was in taking 12 months to reopen its hearings.

The matter should have been wrapped up in March-April this year.

Berejiklian should count herself lucky in getting a bonus six months in office. There is one other unforgivable breach from our former Premier. ­Section 11 of the ICAC Act requires any Minister with a reasonable suspicion of corrupt conduct by another person to report it to the Corruption Commission.

This is not a discussion paper drafted by Simon Longstaff at the Ethics Centre. It’s a legally binding ­requirement on government.

One Nation leader Mark Latham believes Gladys Berejiklian was right to resign. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Peter Lorimer.

Berejiklian had many years in which to report what she knew about Maguire’s business activities – the matters on the phone taps where she said: “I don’t need to know that” but, of course, she did know that.

If a Premier fails in her statutory duty to comply with the corruption laws of her state then obviously she cannot remain as Premier.    

The bottom line with Berejiklian is this: If you want someone as Premier who had many undeclared conflicts of interest with her crooked partner, and repeatedly failed to fulfil her legal duty to report him to ICAC, then she’s your gal.

But if you think integrity at the head of government matters, regardless of the Covid situation and political perceptions of popularity, then she had to go.

I’m firmly in the latter camp.

Mark Latham is NSW Leader of One Nation.