‘I am the boss’: Gladys Berejiklian’s phone calls with secret ex-lover Daryl Maguire revealed as ICAC probe finds pair ‘corrupt’
Text messages and phone calls - including a disturbing conversation where Gladys Berejiklian’s ex-lover urged her to acknowledge he was “the boss” - have been released.
Disgraced ex-MP Daryl Maguire told Gladys Berejiklian “I am the boss, even when you’re the Premier” in secret phone taps she fought to keep private.
Handing down its findings today, the Independent Commission Against Corruption has found she engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” and released a disturbing phone tap underscoring the intense, secret relationship.
It recommends the Director of Public Prosecutions examines prosecuting Mr Maguire but does not suggest this should occur with regard to Ms Berejiklian.
The report notes that the then NSW Premier even gave the now-disgraced MP a key to her home.
According to ICAC, the “numerous lawfully obtained interceptions of the couple’s telephone and text message conversations reveal their close relationship.”
“I am the boss” secret phone tap
Two months earlier, on 14 February 2018, Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire had a telephone conversation during which there was the following exchange. She called him “Hokis” , an Armenian term of love and affection.
BEREJIKLIAN: No but Hokis, if I did something bad, I need to perhaps.
MAGUIRE: Well you were just over the top over the top right and you just don’t need to be so mean that’s all.
BEREJIKLIAN: Okay I’m sorry.
MAGUIRE: You just appeared mean.
BEREJIKLIAN: Do you know why because I forget that I need to look like I’m you impress me in front of like I forget that.
MAGUIRE: No you should I impress, I impress a lot of people why aren’t you impressed in front of people you should be.
BEREJIKLIAN: That’s what I mean I forget that I’m meant to be with you know, technically the Premier so, you know. I get that.
MAGUIRE: Hmm anyway.
During the conversation, Mr Maguire who never rose to become a minister in the NSW government told the then NSW Premier that was “the boss” in the romantic relationship.
BEREJIKLIAN: Because you know what I tell you, because normally you’re the boss and it’s hard when we have to switch it around. That’s the truth.
MAGUIRE: Yeh but I am the boss, even when you’re the Premier.
BEREJIKLIAN: I know. So therefore it’s hard when I had to switch it around.
MAGUIRE: Glad even when you are the Premier I am the boss alright.
BEREJIKLIAN: Yes I know.
MAGUIRE: You are at my table eating my food that’s fine right you’ve just got to calm down you just came over like, oh Jesus, why are you sitting there no f*** off but.
BEREJIKLIAN: I’m sorry I apologise.
MAGUIRE: That’s alright you don’t need to apologise I’m just telling you an
observation that’s all.
The report states that during a private examination during Operation Keppel’s public inquiry into the Maguire allegation that Ms Berejiklian was asked whether this exchange was “a fair understanding of your relationship at that point in time, that in the sense that, at least privately, it was Mr Maguire was the leading party or the boss?”
“Look, as you can appreciate, when you’re the Premier of the state, it’s very difficult in private relationships to make people feel that – he wanted, he, he wanted to feel equal in the relationship because of my position … To make him feel less insecure in a private capacity I’m talking now, not in a public capacity,’’ she said.
“In a private capacity, it’s very personal … when you have a position of power, it’s very difficult in a personal relationship to address that position of power, and that’s what I was referring to. It’s very personal and private. It’s got nothing to do with work. It’s actually making him feel that because I was the boss during the day, that I wouldn’t necessarily be exercising that relationship in the private relationship.”
Counsel Assisting argued that Ms Berejiklian’s observation that “normally you’re the boss and it’s hard when we have to switch it around that’s the truth” was in all likelihood an accurate one: separating the personal from the professional in such circumstances would be “hard” at the least.
Why Gladys Berejiklian fought to keep “boss” conversation private
Ms Berejiklian was given the opportunity to make submissions as to whether the transcripts of the 14 February 2018 conversation and of her private examination about it should be made public.
“She submitted they should not. She argued that the fact that in a private conversation,which “had nothing to do with work”,’’ the report states.
“She contended that her “banal reassurances in this conversation” were a world away from evidence that she would exercise her public functions with partiality, alive to Mr Maguire’s insecurities and/or in a manner calculated to placate him and that the exchange was easily recognisable as an instance of a woman appeasing an insecure man to make him feel better about himself. It did not reflect her sincere sentiments.”
“Ms Berejiklian also submitted that the suggestion this conversation put her “on notice” that non-support by her of projects advanced by Mr Maguire would somehow damage their relationship was not borne out by this conversation nor anything else in the evidence before the Commission. She argued that there was a conspicuous absence in the significant body of material obtained by the Commission of any evidence linking the fortunes of Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire’s personal relationship with her support of projects in his electorate.
“The Commission has considered Ms Berejiklian’s submissions carefully. It appreciates the delicacy of making public matters couples are ordinarily entitled to keep private. However, in the Commission’s view, the 14 February 2018 exchange between Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire is probative of the matters for which Counsel Assisting contend.
“The Commission accepts it as circumstantial evidence, but it is part of the mosaic of information before the Commission which must be carefully considered as part of its investigation of the Berejiklian allegations. It is, as Ms Berejiklian’s submissions recognised, relevant to her exercise of her official functions, albeit she argued the relevance was tenuous.
According to the report, both Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire agreed that their close personal relationship was accompanied by a close emotional connection from which Ms Berejiklian “derived emotional strength”.
“It is clear that there were mutual feelings of love during the relationship,’’ the report states.
Icac says NSW Premier wanted to marry, have child with disgraced MP
“Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire agreed that they discussed marrying each other and contemplated having a child together. The relationship was attended by physical intimacy.
“Although Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire do not appear to have cohabitated with each other for any significant period.
“Messages include plans for meals and drinks together after work, plans for holidays and attending social events together, references to Ms Berejiklian’s Sydney residence by both of them as “home” and mundane domestic arrangements such as requests to pick up bread and things to eat on the way “home”.
The messages are replete with terms of endearment, the use of pet names and other indications of mutual affection.”
Disgraced MP had key to Premier’s house
Mr Maguire had a key to Ms Berejiklian’s home which she said she had given him “many years
ago”.
“They holidayed with each other from time to time and would at times stay at each other’s houses. Ms Berejiklian did not dispute any of these facts,’’ the report states.
The report states it is “apparent that this was a relationship of profound importance to Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire.”
On 12 April 2018, they exchanged the following text messages:
MAGUIRE: I am busy killing mmc you do your job and lead the state.
BEREJIKLIAN: I can’t without you.
MAGUIRE: I am your biggest supporter! Go your back go and do your job.
BEREJIKLIAN: But you are my family.
The definition of someone being “family” to a politician had implications with regard to the code of conduct and potential corruption offences.
“Ms Berejiklian said her statement “you are my family” was a “turn of phrase” and was her “way of expressing what [she] felt at the time about [Mr Maguire] … the close connection [she] felt to him”,’’ the report states.
“She said she “did not mean it in the context that I regarded him as family, especially not in relation to the [ministerial code],” it “wasn’t a, a definition that I, that I, that I was wedding myself to”, that she “often regarded other colleagues or friends as family or brothers and, in fact… regard[ed] my closest friends as family” while accepting that “of course, this was a different, a different nature of feeling”.
“She also agreed the phrase was “demonstrative of the deep emotional attachment” she had to Mr Maguire which conveyed “the close connection I felt to him”. She said he was “part of my love circle, part of people that I strongly cared for”.
“Although Ms Berejiklian qualified that agreement by saying she “had no assurance it was reciprocated or that it was going to lead anywhere,” this clearly did not affect her commitment to the relationship. Nor, as is apparent from the relationship’s persistence for many years, did Mr Maguire’s commitment to it diminish.”
“The numerous lawfully obtained interceptions of the couple’s telephone and text message conversations reveal their close relationship. Indeed, at the time of the above conversation in April 2018, they were contemplating that Mr Maguire would retire from politics at the 2019 election, and that they would then make their relationship public, possibly get married and go on holidays together.”
The report states that Counsel Assisting submitted that Ms Berejiklian’s relationship with Mr Maguire was not merely a relationship of friendship, it was one of mutual love and a mutual close emotional connection.
They argued that a relationship of that kind is, of its nature, one that is “capable of influencing a person’s conduct for the simple, completely legitimate and entirely human reason that people tend to wish to please and to seek to avoid disappointing the expectations or desires of people who they love.”
“Ms Berejiklian described that submission as “puerile”,’’ the report states.
“The Commission considers Ms Berejiklian’s description as both supercilious and unworldly.”
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