NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to face Daryl Maguire ICAC hearing
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been summoned to give evidence before the corruption inquiry into embattled Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.
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Premier Gladys Berejiklian has declined to provide details about her alleged contact with major Sydney property developers after being called to give evidence at a corruption investigation into former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard a Liberal donor and developer, who wanted to discuss projects with Planning Minister Anthony Roberts and the Premier, allegedly “bumped into” Ms Berejiklian after drinking with Maguire in Parliament House.
The commission summoned Ms Berejiklian on Thursday to appear next week.
“I’m pleased to assist in the inquiries that are going on,” she said on Thursday.
“I don’t want to jeopardise the good work that’s being undertaken in relation to these matters. And for that purpose it would be inappropriate to say anything.”
Ms Berejiklian, who will give evidence on Monday, would not say whether she had met property developer Joseph Alha, who claimed he had a glass of wine with Maguire and Mr Roberts’ chief of staff in parliament in November 2017 while speaking about a problem with a project.
Maguire then allegedly took him to “bump into” Ms Berejiklian in her office.
“I remember meeting the Premier on that night ... I don’t know if I even spoke to her about my projects,” Mr Alha told the ICAC.
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Ms Berejiklian said all the meetings she has had as Premier are recorded in her public diary. That month’s diary does not record any meeting with Maguire or Mr Alha.
She met with Maguire and others on October 31 “to discuss gaming issues”.
Ms Berejiklian’s former chief of staff will front the inquiry on Friday, as will the former chief of staff for the Planning Minister.
Mr Alha, a property developer and “very active” Liberal donor, said he’d met many premiers through his connection to Maguire.
“This isn’t the first premier I’ve met … We did this quite often,” he said.
Mr Alha said he stopped donating to the NSW party since the law changed to prohibit developer donations but still gives to the party’s federal arm.
He told the ICAC he had deleted messages with Maguire when the public inquiry began last month. The commission ordered him to hand over his phone.
“I asked (Maguire) if there was anything wrong with what he was doing and he said no, and you guys are crazy and it’s just bureaucrats trying to justify your existence,” Mr Alha said.
The NSW Premier was previously drawn into the investigation when Louise Waterhouse, a member of the Waterhouse racing family, allegedly emailed Ms Berejiklian about changing roads around a massive parcel of land in Sydney’s west.
ICAC heard Maguire, in a tapped phone call, gave the developer a direct contact for the Premier after he allegedly lobbied other government officials about roads and rezoning for Ms Waterhouse.
MAGUIRE ALLEGEDLY TOLD STAFF TO SHRED EVERYTHING
Caught up in a growing political scandal, with corruption investigators circling, embattled MP Daryl Maguire allegedly issued a “scorched earth” directive, telling his trusted staffers to “get rid of everything”, the corruption watchdog has heard.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption has also heard that, as Maguire’s career collapsed, the former MP’s son called the office saying the family home was being raided and staffers felt that meant they should shred whatever was left.
The Liberal member for Wagga Wagga had been summoned to face the ICAC’s operation Dasha in mid-July 2018 where allegations were aired he sought commissions from developers to lobby government officials.
Before he fronted the ICAC, which was not targeting him directly but ultimately finished his political career, he asked staff in his Wagga office to back up his phones for safe keeping.
Former media and electorate officer Sarah Vasey, on Wednesday, recalled sitting at her desk in the Wagga office with three devices and contacting a tech support company who could handle the matter “discreetly”.
Another staff member drew up a letter to ensure tech support didn’t share the data with anyone.
Ms Vasey said she was given back a USB with data on it and Maguire told her to put it in her handbag.
After the embattled MP gave evidence at the Dasha ICAC, in July 2018, he resigned from the Liberal Party and ordered his staff to “get rid of everything”, Ms Vasey said.
“He just said get rid of everything … electronic, hard copy – everything,” she said.
Boxes of documents were put in bins to be shredded in his office, she said.
Ms Vasey is heard on an intercepted phone call speaking with Maguire about backing up his computer in his NSW Parliament House office to a hard drive before everything was wiped.
The ICAC heard that may be the hard drive that sat in the draw of senior Government Whip staffer, Rebecca Cartwright, until she revealed its existence a few weeks ago.
That lead to her being escorted before a barrage of news cameras to NSW Parliament House so investigators could retrieve it.
Maguire had signalled he’d step down from parliament entirely but his staff were still hoping he’d be replaced by a Liberal or National.
Ms Vasey agreed with Counsel Assisting the Commission Scott Robertson that Maguire wanted a “scorched earth” destruction of his documents but his staff wanted to keep their own files for “continuity” once he was replaced.
“He said get rid of it all but I was uneasy doing it,” she said.
“It was a crappy time, everything was changing. If there was anything specific I thought he might want to keep I put it into a box.”
More than a month after Maguire totally exited politics, on August 3, ICAC investigators executed a search warrant on his Wagga home.
Ms Vasey said she took a phone call from his son, James Maguire, allegedly told her “they’re in the house”.
Ms Vasey said Maguire’s son, in the call, gave her the impression they should continue to shred documents in case the office was raided next but was choosing his words carefully and did not say it explicitly.
James Maguire, facing the ICAC on Wednesday, said he gave Ms Vasey a “heads up” that he was being followed by a car through Wagga – he initially thought it was the media.
“I remember calling my father and saying lock the gate …. And calling Ms Vasey at the electorate office giving a heads up that this might happen,” he said.
He said he couldn’t recall giving any specific instructions but said it could be possible “in the heat of the moment” he gave her advice about laying low.
Ms Vasey said she rushed out of the office and went home, panicked she would be accused of concealing the USB that was still in her handbag.
Ms Vasey said she later called Maguire and said she didn’t want to hold on to it anymore.
“I felt uncomfortable having it,” she said, adding she feared he’d asked her to conceal evidence.
“I didn’t like the position I had been put in by being instructed to hold onto it.”
She said Maguire arrived at her home extremely early in the morning and she handed over his USB.
“I asked what he had done with it (sometime later),” she said.
“He made the remark it had met with an unfortunate accident in a paddock.”
Ms Cartwright, when she faced the ICAC, said Maguire allegedly told her the hard drive she was holding should “get lost in the post”.
James Maguire initially denied to the ICAC that he helped his father delete electronic records.
But he backflipped after an intercepted phone call revealed him speaking with his father about how to delete emails and accounts from a server in late August, days before the raid.
He denied having a role in deleting any hard copy documents.