Miranda Devine: Loneliness is no excuse for Gladys Berejiklian
Gladys Berejiklian is entitled to a private life, but she should not have failed to see what Daryl Maguire was up to - particularly in his close dealings with the Chinese, writes Miranda Devine.
Opinion
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Sympathy for Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s lonely private life should not cloud the facts revealed in the ICAC corruption case against her former paramour Daryl Maguire.
Her lengthy involvement with such a character, which continued even after he resigned from parliament in 2018 over a previous corruption scandal involving Chinese property developers, brings to mind questions over her professional relationship with another controversial figure, Michael Photios.
A lobbyist with an unhealthy influence over the Premier’s moderate faction of the Liberal party, Photios has long been the Premier’s mentor, though she claims no longer talks to him.
His involvement in a contract in the disastrous light rail project, which was Berejiklian’s signature project when she was transport minister, raised questions about her judgment.
Now, again, her judgment has been found wanting.
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Maguire, the former Wagga Wagga MP whom she secretly dated for five years, until just a few weeks ago, is embroiled in a second ICAC investigation involving allegedly corrupt land deals with Chinese associates around Badgerys Creek airport and a ‘cash for visas’ scheme for Chinese nationals.
It is alleged he monetised his relationship with the Premier, gave her private email address to one associate and held a business meeting in her office lobby to which he summoned officials.
The Premier has dismissed the disturbing revelations merely as “a mistake in my personal life” and is determined to brazen them out.
But she never has faced up to the potential national security risk of the money-hungry partner of a Premier trailing his coat to Chinese companies which, by definition, are linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
Voters should have been informed about what Berejiklian describes as her “close personal relationship” with Maguire when he resigned in disgrace in 2018, before the Liberals disastrously lost a by-election in his former safe seat of Wagga Wagga.
Maguire’s visits to China were so frequent that he was known around parliament as “Mr China”.
It is even more alarming that one of his alleged dodgy deals involves the new Badgerys Creek airport, a prize strategic asset from the CCP’s point of view.
Taxpayers deserve better than airy assurances about the Premier’s personal integrity from federal and state Liberals.
The Premier’s colleagues have rallied around her so far. In a party room meeting on Tuesday there were pledges of loyalty all around. But don’t let that fool you.
Fellow MPs are collectively holding their breath for the next stage of the ICAC inquiry, where Maguire is set to give evidence today.
“No one thinks it’s over,” one of her colleagues said.
ICAC is investigating Maguire’s lobbying on behalf of Louise Waterhouse, the owner of a $330 million parcel of land near Badgerys Creek Creek airport which she was trying to sell to a Chinese company. He gave Waterhouse the Premier’s personal email address so she could lobby her directly about a road she wanted built on her property.
Berejiklian told ICAC she did not read Waterhouse’s email and her chief of staff informed ICAC he could not find it in the Premier’s inbox or deleted items folder. In phone taps played to the inquiry, Maguire is heard discussing the airport land deal with Berejiklian, who replies, “I don’t need to know about that bit”.
She denied to ICAC on Monday that she turned a “blind eye” to potential wrongdoing or had ever suspected Maguire was using the influence of her office to promote his business ventures.
“I would never, ever, never, ever turn a blind eye from any responsibility I had to disclose any wrongdoing that I saw, or any activity that I thought was not in keeping with what a member of parliament should be doing,” she said.
To get an idea of the character of the man the Premier once called her “numero uno”, an appalling exchange caught on telephone intercepts is instructive.
It is October 2017, and Maguire has been dating the Premier for more than two years. He is on the phone to Sydney developer Joseph Alha, who brings up news reports that the Liberal “party room’s divided over property development”.
Maguire reassures Alha that it’s just a few “right wingers” around Epping who “don’t like too much development, Chinese, and all that stuff [and are] arcing up.” Alha jokes that the Chinese are “taking over the country, mate.”
To which Maguire replies: “If you’re gonna be taken over, you may as well make some f--king money out of it.”
The Premier’s failure to comprehend the risks of her then-boyfriend’s avaricious relationships with Chinese companies is astonishing.
After all, she was aware that national security concerns had scuttled her government’s proposed sale of a majority stake in Ausgrid to two Chinese companies in 2016.
She must have been aware of Labor’s Sam Dastyari scandal, the controversy over the 2015 sale of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company.
Under questioning by reporters on Tuesday, the Premier had no reassurance for a public already alarmed by CCP influence in Australian politics.
Instead, she tried to distance herself from responsibility.
“I don’t set the rules on what business interests MPs are allowed to do. They are based on what is in the pecuniary interest register,” she said.
It’s not good enough.
At the very least, allegations from ICAC’s Operation Keppel, which are making headlines around the world, have tainted the most significant infrastructure project in NSW in a generation.
It is a disservice to Australia to treat it merely as the story about a 50-year-old woman’s star-crossed love life.
Miranda Devine is in New York for 18 months to cover current affairs for The Daily Telegraph