ICAC updates: Mike Baird says Gladys Berejiklian should have revealed relationship

Ex-premier Mike Baird has told ICAC that Gladys Berejiklian’s secret partner Daryl Maguire was “relentless” and “abusive” to bureaucrats as he pursued his own agenda.

Former Premier Baird has also told the Independent Commission Against Corruption that Gladys Berejiklian’s secret partner was “relentless” and “abusive” to bureaucrats as he pursued his own agenda.

“Incredulous,” Mr Baird said, describing his reaction when Ms Berejiklian divulged the relationship before the ICAC last year.

“I think it should have been disclosed. The concept of executing public function in the context of potential private interests … that should have been disclosed … to myself as Premier.”

Mike Baird leaves his home bound for the ICAC hearings on Wednesday.

Mike Baird arrives at ICAC to give evidence on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

The corruption watchdog is investigating why Mr Baird’s office, in late 2016, suddenly changed its tune on a $5.5 million grant application for a clay target shooting club in Wagga.

Maguire had been campaigning for the funding over a number of years, the ICAC heard, but bureaucrats felt the gun club business case just didn’t stack up.

A top adviser to Mr Baird, in a memo in December 2016, told the Premier to “oppose” Maguire’s request.

“Sometimes you gotta say WTF,” Mr Baird’s top adviser Nigel Blunden said, quoting Tom Cruise in Risky Business in the December 2016 memo to Mr Baird about the application.

But it was known then-treasurer Gladys Berejiklian supported the application, the ICAC has heard.

Staffers in her office knew she wanted the application to be put before the expenditure review committee (ERC) as a matter of urgency, emails released by the ICAC demonstrate.

The ICAC, this week, heard Daryl Maguire had met with Ms Berejiklian to speak about how some bureaucrats were holding the project back.

“Get the effing thing sorted,” he allegedly told one staffer.

Mr Baird’s advisers, in their memo, said “Daryl fired up” when they indicated they would not support the project.

Treasurer Berejiklian had re-added the proposal to the ERC agenda, Mr Baird was told.

“Daryl was someone who relentlessly pursued his own agenda,” Mr Baird told the ICAC on Wednesday, looking over the memo.

“At times he was certainly aggressive, at times abusive to members of staff, public servants and MPs.”

Mr Blunden also told his premier that Ms Berejiklian and then-sports minister Stuart Ayres wanted the funding to go ahead.

“No doubt they’ve done a sweetheart deal with Daryl, but this goes against all the principles of sound economic management,” Mr Blunden wrote.

Mr Baird said the project “would have been that (Maguire) wanted it and they were going to deliver it — that was the deal”.

The ICAC heard Ms Berejiklian, at the ERC meeting that week, supported the grant application and there was “general support” from all members.

The club ultimately won its $5.5m proposal in 2017 and Maguire was pictured smiling and aiming a gun down range at a major event the following year.

‘WTF!’ Baird adviser’s explosive ICAC bombshell

Former premier Gladys Berejiklian put a proposal to grant $5.5 million to a Wagga Wagga shooting club back on the cabinet agenda after her then-secret lover Daryl Maguire “fired up,” the Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard.

The ICAC also heard that the decision to put the Australian Clay Target Association grant on the agenda for cabinet’s expenditure review committee (ERC) on December 14 2016 came against the recommendation of a senior adviser to then-premier Mike Baird.

Nigel Blunden, Mr Baird’s Director of Strategy at the time, told ICAC that he, raised multiple problems with the proposed $5.5 million grant.

Gladys Berejiklian on Tuesday. Picture: John Grainger

As early as December 6, Mr Blunden said the proposal should be delayed so a rigorous and independent business case could be prepared, the ICAC heard.

Mr Blunden said the grant “Seems like a lot of $$$” in one email tendered as part of the ICAC proceedings.

Mr Blunden, minutes later, told Minister Ayres’ office they would “hold this one” and finalise its business case before the project went before the ERC, according to tendered documents.

Just days later, the ICAC heard, the Premier’s Office wrote to Minister Ayres saying they were “happy to proceed” with the project.

“I’m not aware what may have happened in those couple of days to get this email response,” Mr Blunden told the ICAC on Tuesday.

But within days the matter was back on the cabinet subcommittee’s agenda, he said.

In a written brief to then-premier Baird prepared on or about 12 December that was tendered to ICAC, Mr Blunden expressed his frustrations with the grant coming before cabinet.

“(A delay) was suggested and it was taken off the agenda but Daryl fired up and Gladys put it back on,” Mr Blunden said in the memo.

Mr Blunden even quoted Tom Cruise’s character from the 1983 film ‘Risky Business’ in his note.

“As Joel Goodson would say, sometimes you have to say WTF,” Mr Blunden said of the grant.

Mr Blunden told the ICAC that there “may have been an impact” on what advice he provided if he had known Ms Berejiklian was in a relationship with Mr Maguire.

Mr Maguire, who was secretly dating then-Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian in 2016, had lobbied his girlfriend along with Minister for Sport Stuart Ayres asking for the grant to go to a shooting club in his electorate, the ICAC has heard.

In late 2016 Treasurer Berejiklian had told bureaucrats to get the application on the agenda for the ERC which she chaired so it could be considered for funding.

Mr Baird will front the ICAC as a witness.