Gladys Berejiklian vows to lead party to election despite ICAC hearings
Besieged Premier Gladys Berejiklian has vowed to lead the party to the 2023 election as disgraced MP Daryl Maguire claimed he had purposely shielded her from his shady deals.
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- Secret ICAC spy op on NSW parliament
- Gladys’ dinners with Maguire and business partner exposed
- COMMENT: Premier’s ICAC nightmare is far from over
Besieged Premier Gladys Berejiklian has vowed to lead the party to the 2023 election as disgraced MP Daryl Maguire claimed he had purposely shielded her from his shady deals.
The Premier repeatedly said she had done nothing wrong and did not accept she deliberately limited the amount of information she knew about her secret lover’s business schemes.
When asked on Friday if she was confident she’d be leading the party to the next election, she replied: “Very confident.”
She insisted she would not resign and would only do so when “I’ve done something wrong”.
Those in the Premier’s inner circle have declared they believed she could survive the scandal, with one this week claiming she felt “used” by Mr Maguire.
Her senior ministers continued to rally around her.
“I think she’ll be the Premier next week, I think she’ll be the Premier next month, I think she’ll be the Premier that leads the government to the next election, and I think she’ll keep leading NSW for many, many years to come,” Tourism Minister Stuart Ayres said.
At the close of the Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation, Mr Maguire admitted he had misused his political office and abused the public trust for profit.
The former Wagga Wagga MP told the inquiry he didn’t want to “burden” Ms Berejiklian, with whom he had been in a secret on-and-off relationship for five years, with the “specifics” of property deals he hoped would wipe his $1.5 million debt.
The corruption watchdog again examined a September 2017 intercepted phone call between Mr Maguire and Ms Berejiklian where he discussed a potential Badgerys Creek business deal.
During the phone call, Ms Berejiklian declared “I don’t need to know about that bit”, to which Mr Maguire replied, “No you don’t”.
He agreed with ICAC counsel assisting Scott Robertson that he had sought to “shield” the Premier, partly because it would have put her in a difficult position and possibly require her to take action.
“Yes, I would have been concerned that it would cause an issue for her. I thought it would cause her difficulty so I limited the information I gave her,” he said.
Ms Berejiklian refused to answer reporters’ questions on Friday about why she told Mr Maguire she “didn’t need to know” information about his business dealings.
“Hand on heart I have done nothing wrong and I refer everybody to my evidence on Monday, and I also say this — Mr Maguire was in parliament for nearly 20 years and many of us trusted him and many of us were let down by him,” she said.
In the final exchange of the month-long public hearing of ICAC’s Operation Keppel, Mr Maguire effectively admitted that, between 2012 and 2018, he acted corruptly in office.
“Would you agree that, on more than one occasion, you improperly used your parliamentary resources and your position as a member of parliament to gain a benefit for yourself and persons close to you?” he was asked.
“I agree,” Maguire said.
Maguire: Secret relationship with Premier may have started earlier
Former MP Daryl Maguire shielded his secret partner - Gladys Berejiklian - from his shady deals fearing it would “reflect badly” on her but admitted to misusing his political office and abusing the public trust.
It’s also been revealed the highly private relationship between the pair may have begun in 2014, not a year later as both Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire initially told investigators.
The disgraced Member for Wagga Wagga effectively admitted to the Independent Commission Against Corruption that, between 2012 and 2018, he acted corruptly while in office.
“Would you agree that, on more than one occasion, you improperly used your parliamentary resources and your position as a Member of Parliament to gain a benefit for yourself and persons close to you?” Counsel Assisting the Commission Scott Robertson asked him after three days of questioning.
“I agree,” Maguire said, acceptingly.
Mr Robertson asked if he also agreed that he “breached the public trust” placed in him in his roles in NSW Parliament.
“I agree,” Maguire repeated.
It was the final exchange in the month-long public hearing of ICAC’s Operation Keppel that heard Maguire secretly directed G8wayinternational, a shadowy company that sought to monetise his political network and clout.
Maguire also was revealed as a great friend to wealthy property developers and foreign Chinese firms, admitting he tried or hoped to get cash in exchange for opening doors on Macquarie Street and leaning on his own colleagues in government.
Central to his crooked behaviour, the ICAC heard, was Maguire’s $1.5m mountain of debt, which he hoped to clear through the property deals.
The hearing steadily dug into his affairs for three weeks before exploding onto the front pages when the NSW Premier dropped a bombshell on the witness stand - she’d been in a “close personal relationship” with Maguire for years.
She had told almost no one, she said, and she claimed she knew nothing of his misconduct until it emerged in 2018 and she sacked him.
The pair stayed in the relationship for a further two years, until Operation Keppel went public, but Maguire seemed to back up her ignorance when he finally gave evidence.
Maguire said he chose not to “burden” the Premier with details because he worried it would “reflect badly” on her.
“I didn’t want to burden her with details she didn’t need to know,” he said.
Mr Robertson said it was more than that however - putting to Maguire he was hiding details of his dealings from his partner because it would lead to difficult questions and potentially force Ms Berejiklian’s hand.
“I suggest it wouldn't reflect well on her,” Maguire said.
The former Wagga Wagga MP, in 2017 phone calls, tells Ms Berejiklian about the imminent success of a deal at Badgerys Creek.
Maguire did not detail on the phone that “Badgerys Creek” was the planned sale of Louise Waterhouse’s SmartWest property which Maguire hoped would net him a debt-wiping $1.5 million in commission.
Ms Berejiklian told him she didn’t need to know details when the matter was raised.
When asked specifically which difficulties he feared creating for his secretive partner, Maguire said “conflicts of interest, all that sort of stuff”.
A good example of how Maguire shielded Ms Berejiklian, he said, came in 2018 when he was hoping to get out of politics.
In an intercepted call he tells Ms Berejiklian about a meeting with his “little friend with a polished head”.
Ms Berejiklian said she didn’t need to know who that was and later told the ICAC she didn’t know who it referred to.
Maguire told the ICAC that was a reference to his developer and Liberal donor mate Joe Alha, whose projects he’d been lobbying government.
Both Maguire and Ms Berejiklian agreed they’d begun the relationship around 2015.
But Counsel Assisting the Commission Scott Robertson, on Friday, said the ICAC had probed the start date of their relationship because it was relevant to the intercepted calls.
“At least in relation to the question of the period of time in which the relationship between Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire was on foot is a matter… that’s at least connected to and relevant to this commission’s investigation into, and which is focused on, Mr Maguire’s conduct,” he said.
The ICAC decided to unredact part of Maguire’s private evidence that deals with his “perspective” on when the relationship began.
A text message, tendered before the ICAC, shows Maguire referred to Ms Berejiklian with a pet name as early as February 2014, a year before the pair said they began the relationship at least.
“Hawkiss good news One of my contacts sold a motel for 5.8 million I had put her in contact so I should make 5k,” Maguire wrote.
“Congrats!!! Great News!! Woo hoo,” Ms Berejiklian responded.
“Hawkiss” or “Hokiss” was an Armenien term of affection, which the pair used with one another, that translates loosely as “my soul” or “my beloved”.
Maguire didn’t agree, wholesale, to every allegation put to him by the ICAC.
He said he didn’t instruct a staffer to make sure a hard drive “got lost in the post”, rather he said he just didn’t care what happened to it.
His political career was ruined and his son-in-law had died on the very same day, the ICAC heard.
Similarly he said he never ran over his phones and iPad with a tractor. The iPad, he said, was seized by investigators. He’d told an associate, he said, to enforce that she should clear potentially incriminating records.
Similarly he said he wanted to clear “everything” from his office - partly it was to hide it from the ICAC investigation.
Partly, he said, it was to conceal private matters in his electorate.
The ICAC, on Friday, heard Maguire used his political network to act as “match maker” for developer and racing royalty Louise Waterhouse to get Japanese businesses to invest in her land.
Maguire, in an intercepted phone call to the Japanese Consul, said “a friend of mine has asked me to do some matchmaking.” because they were looking for investors for their large land holding.
The Wagga MP explained his “friend”, who was either Ms Waterhouse or her broking agent William Luong, had a large land holding that had potential to be developed into a technology park and service hub for the proposed airport in Sydney’s west.
“This friend who has the land is very keen and when I said the Japanese expressed interest after the Premier’s visit, their eyes lit up and they said the Japanese are good to do business with,” Maguire told the Japanese Consul.
Maguire told his Japanese associate “the Chinese were moving all over the place” but people were getting concerned they had “too much influence”.
He also said people preferred “close friends” such as Japanese and South Korean investors who could be relied on “in times of trouble” for critical airport-adjacent infrastructure.
He agreed he had no authority to complain to a foreign official about China.
Maguire had no connection, through his electorate of Parliamentary roles, to the area or projects in Badgerys Creek but set up multiple meetings with government officials and lobbied extensively for changes to roads and zonings with Ms Waterhouse.
In late 2017 he reached out to Melinda Pavey, Minister for Roads, for help and she sent her staffer Jock Sowter to meet Maguire.
Mr Sowter, in his own evidence, said he was surprised to see Ms Waterhouse with Maguire in the lobby of the Premier’s office when he went to meet the MP.
The junior staffer was ultimately unable to help Ms Waterhouse get an intersection moved but Maguire followed up, ultimately roping the office of Transport Minister Andrew Constance, a senior “cluster minister”, in to check Mr Sowter’s work.
Mr Robertston said Maguire’s behaviour could only be explained by the fact he was hoping to be financially rewarded if the Waterhouse property sold.
But Maguire said he took interest because it was “a political issue”.
“Ms Waterhouse had organised a committee of people who thought they’d be landlocked under a flight path for 20-30 years with no way out,” he said.
Mr Robertson pressed him - saying he wouldn’t have set up the meeting with Mr Sowter or taken all the steps for Ms Waterhouse unless he was in line for a paycheck, which the ICAC previously heard was $1.5m.
Maguire agreed.
ICAC APOLOGY AFTER TRANSCRIPT LEAKED
Earlier in the day Mr Robertson, the corruption’s chief legal mind, clashed with the barrister for the NSW Premier in a heated exchange over a leaked document which divulged secrets of the hidden relationship between Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire.
The breach is now being investigated by the Independent Commission Against Corruption but it appears there is no way to track down who downloaded a copy - and no way to order its destruction.
The ICAC “erroneously” published a transcript of its closed door hearing with the former Wagga Wagga MP on Thursday night where he faced questions about his hidden relationship with Ms Berejiklian.
The unredacted transcript remained on the commission’s website for 30 minutes before it was taken down and replaced with a redacted version and a suppression order issues to prevent the information being published.
ICAC’s Assistant Commissioner, Ruth McColl, apologised to both Ms Berejiklian and Maguire.
But the Premier’s barrister, Arthur Moses SC, said it was “a violation of (Ms Berejiklian’s) privacy and her security”.
He has asked the ICAC to figure out if it could find out who downloaded the transcript - but Commission McColl said it did not appear possible.
She also said she didn’t believe the commission had the power to order the “destruction” of any copies and said the matter would be discussed later in the day.
Mr Moses then took aim at Thursday’s questioning by Counsel Assisting the Commission Scott Robertson over how much Ms Berejiklian knew about Maguire’s Badgerys Creek deal.
“(Mr Robertson) had no basis to put that question,” Mr Moses said.
He also accused the ICAC of not revealing Maguire had acted properly by raising questions of employment with firm UWE, outside public office, with the Parliamentary ethics advisor.
Mr Robertson countered - saying that information had been released on the very first day of the hearing and said Mr Moses should be “very careful” before making allegations of “misconduct”.
The ICAC is conducting an internal investigation into the transcript’s leak.
PREMIER DODGES RELATIONSHIP QUESTIONS
A stern faced Gladys Berejiklian has refused to answer questions about Daryl Maguire’s evidence this morning in a fiery press conference.
The Premier declined to answer why she told Maguire she “didn’t need to know” certain information about his business dealings.
“Hand on heart I have done nothing wrong and I refer everybody to my evidence on Monday, and I also say this - Maguire was in parliament for nearly twenty years and many of us trusted him and many of us were let down by him,” Ms Berejiklian said.
The Premier repeatedly said she had done nothing wrong, and did not accept that she deliberately limited the amount of information she knew about Maguire.
Despite saying it was “appropriate” that ICAC get to the bottom of all issues, the Premier shot down suggestions that she should have reported Maguire’s behaviour.
She said she was “very confident” she would be leading the Liberal party to the next election, and said she would only resign when “I’ve done something wrong”.
She also said she didn’t expect to be called back to ICAC.
The Premier did not accept that she had lost the support of the public.
“The public know every day that I’ve been in this job I’ve done my job with the highest level of integrity,” Ms Berejiklian said.
MAGUIRE STEELY ON LOVE LIFE AHEAD OF ICAC
Mr Maguire dodged personal questions about his relationship with the Premier when arrived at the ICAC for a final day of questioning.
The former Wagga Wagga MP attempted to evade the media when he arrived just before 8am, with his taxi speeding into the carpark where the inquiry is being held. For the third day in a row, Maguire arrived hours before hearings were due to commence.
A steely Maguire refused to respond to a barrage of questions from journalists. When asked whether he loved Premier Gladys Berejiklian or was purely with her for “the power,” he did not comment. He also refused to say whether he was remorseful about the alleged corrupt conduct.
As he strode into the elevator towards ICAC, he also declined to comment on what Ms Berejiklian knew about his allegedly improper conduct and whether she deserved to lose her job because of her relationship with him. He also did not say whether he would defend her position.