Gladys Berejiklian ICAC report LIVE updates: Maguire told former NSW premier he was ‘the boss’ in tapped phone call as both found corrupt by commission

Gladys Berejiklian has responded to the ICAC report that found she had engaged in serious corrupt conduct.

“Serving the people of NSW was an honour and privilege. At all times I have worked my hardest in the public interest,” Berejiklian said in a statement.

“Nothing in this report demonstrates otherwise. Thank you to members of the public for their incredible support. This will sustain me always. The report is currently being examined by my legal team.”

Berejiklian had a team of high-powered barristers acting for her at the inquiry, including Sydney barristers Bret Walker, SC, and Sophie Callan, SC.

A corruption finding may be struck down by the Supreme Court where the ICAC has made an error of law; its reasoning was not objectively reasonable; there is no evidence that could rationally support its finding; relevant matters were not taken into account or irrelevant matters were taken into account; or there was a denial of natural justice.

Good evening and thank you for reading our live coverage of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s report in Operation Keppel, its inquiry into former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian and former Wagga Wagga Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.

If you are just catching up now, here’s what you need to know.

ICAC commissioner Ruth McColl (centre) presided over the corruption probe into former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian (left) and former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.Credit:

Serious corrupt conduct findings

• The ICAC made serious corrupt conduct findings against both Berejiklian and Maguire, who were in a secret relationship during her time as treasurer and premier. That relationship only came to light in 2020 when Berejiklian gave evidence at the ICAC for the first time.

Berejiklian won’t face criminal charge

• No criminal charges will be laid against Berejiklian as a result of those findings, but Maguire and two business associates may face charges.

Duration of Berejiklian-Maguire relationship

• Berejiklian and Maguire had told the corruption watchdog that their relationship started in earnest in 2015. However, the ICAC said that “from at least the early part of 2014 onwards”, text messages between the pair were “consistent with physical and emotional intimacy and a romantic relationship having developed”.
• The ICAC said the relationship “finally broke down on 13 September 2020, when Ms Berejiklian said she ceased contact with Mr Maguire approximately a week before the commencement of the first public inquiry” into Maguire’s conduct in 2020, which was extended a year later to examine her own conduct.
• Berejiklian had said she kept in contact with Maguire for his welfare after she asked him to quit politics in July 2018 following his evidence at a previous corruption inquiry.

Findings against Berejiklian

• The ICAC found Berejiklian engaged in serious corrupt conduct by “refusing to discharge her duty” under section 11 of the ICAC Act to report her suspicions about Maguire to the corruption watchdog. The commission concluded Berejiklian had “dishonestly and partially” breached the ministerial code of conduct by failing to report Maguire to the ICAC, and had been wilfully blind to his wrongdoing.
• However, the ICAC said there was insufficient evidence to prove to the criminal standard – beyond reasonable doubt – that Berejiklian had the criminal intent required to establish the offence of misconduct in public office. It meant prosecutors would be unable to prove an essential element of the crime in court. The commission was satisfied to the lower civil standard – on the balance of probabilities – that Berejiklian did act “dishonestly and partially” and it could make a corruption finding against her.
• The commission also made findings of serious corrupt conduct against Berejiklian relating to her involvement in multimillion-dollar grants or promises made to organisations in Maguire’s electorate between 2016 and 2018, when she was treasurer and later premier. However, it did not consider that the conduct was of sufficient seriousness as to merit criminal punishment, an essential element of the offence of misconduct in public office.

Berejiklian’s response

• The former premier released a somewhat defiant public statement in which she said that “serving the people of NSW was an honour and a privilege” and “at all times I have worked my hardest in the public interest. Nothing in this report demonstrates otherwise. Thank you to members of the public for their incredible support. This will sustain me always.”

A potential court challenge

• Berejiklian also hinted at the prospect of a Supreme Court challenge to the findings, saying the report was being “examined by my legal team”.
• In 1992, former premier Nick Greiner and minister Tim Moore became the first people in NSW to successfully challenge corruption findings by the ICAC in court.
• A corruption finding may be struck down by the Supreme Court where the ICAC has made an error of law; its reasoning was not objectively reasonable; there is no evidence that could rationally support its finding; relevant matters were not taken into account or irrelevant matters were taken into account; or there was a denial of natural justice.

Findings against Maguire

• The ICAC concluded Maguire improperly used his office, and the resources to which he had access as an MP, between 2012 and August 2018. The corruption watchdog said that he did so to benefit G8wayInternational Pty Ltd, “a company of which he was in substance a director and whose profits he had an arrangement to share with others”.
• The commission said Maguire “also misused his role as an MP to advance his own financial interests, as well as the commercial interests of his associates, in connection with an immigration scheme that he promoted to his constituents and others connected with his electoral district”.
• He may face criminal charges as a result of his conduct. The ICAC does not conduct prosecutions, which are the responsibility of the independent NSW Director of Public Prosecutions.

This is Michaela Whitbourn signing off on the live blog.

Liberal MP Tim James, who narrowly won Berejiklian’s old seat of Willoughby in a byelection following her resignation in 2021, has not acknowledged the ICAC findings in a statement this evening.

He writes on Facebook: “Gladys Berejiklian served the people of Willoughby and NSW with distinction for nearly two decades, including during some of the state’s toughest times.

Liberal MP Tim James earlier this year.Credit: James Brickwood

“Residents of the Willoughby electorate were fortunate to have such a dedicated and hard-working local member in Gladys.

“I know how much appreciation and respect there is for Gladys across Willoughby, and rightly so.”

The Coalition has sought repeatedly to downplay the seriousness of the ICAC’s findings against former premier Gladys Berejiklian by highlighting that she did not make a financial benefit and will not face criminal charges.

On the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program this afternoon, shadow attorney-general Alister Henskens was pressed on whether he thought politicians should still be held to account for corrupt conduct which did not meet the threshold for criminal charges.

Jailed former NSW Labor MP Eddie Obeid.Credit: Daniel Munoz

A finding of corrupt conduct, as defined in the ICAC Act, does not require a criminal offence to have taken place or be capable of being proven in court, although sometimes it will dovetail with criminal behaviour.

“I do not want to be understood to be in any sense suggesting that integrity in government is not important … but when most people think of corruption, they think of bribery akin to personal financial benefits, the kind of financial benefits that Eddie Obeid and others that have been found seriously corrupt received,” he said.

“That is not the case here with regards to Gladys Berejiklian.”

While the former premier did not benefit financially, the ICAC did find that Berejiklian, “in the exercise or performance of her official functions, acted improperly for her private benefit – namely, the benefit in maintaining or advancing her close personal relationship with Mr Maguire”.

Henskens said the ICAC’s verdict was “only one opinion”, and evoked the watchdog’s aborted inquiry into former Crown Margaret Cunneen, SC, and subsequently-overturned findings against former premier Nick Greiner.

The ICAC concluded that the close personal relationship between former premier Gladys Berejiklian and former Wagga Wagga Liberal MP Daryl Maguire did not break down until September 2020, notwithstanding that he had resigned from parliament in August 2018 following his evidence at a previous corruption inquiry.

No findings were made against Maguire as a result of the previous inquiry, dubbed Operation Dasha, although he has since been charged with giving false or misleading evidence to the ICAC during its hearings in July 2018. He has yet to enter a plea.

Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian outside her home earlier this week.Credit: James Brickwood

Maguire and Berejiklian told the ICAC that their relationship started in 2015. However, the ICAC said that “from at least the early part of 2014 onwards”, text messages between the pair were “consistent with physical and emotional intimacy and a romantic relationship having developed” between them.

The corruption watchdog said the relationship between Berejiklian and Maguire persisted after his evidence at the ICAC in July 2018, which triggered his resignation from parliament, and “the prospect of Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire getting married was also still a possibility on 13 July 2018”.

“The close personal relationship continued notwithstanding the events of 2018, including Ms Berejiklian publicly stating that Mr Maguire should leave Parliament consequent upon his Operation Dasha public inquiry evidence, referred to earlier in this report.

“It finally broke down on 13 September 2020, when Ms Berejiklian said she ceased contact with Mr Maguire approximately a week before the commencement of the first public inquiry [into Maguire’s conduct], and after she participated in a compulsory examination on 16 August 2020.”

The ICAC’s inquiry into Maguire was extended in October 2021 to examine Berejiklian’s own conduct.

The ICAC said Gladys Berejiklian was “wilfully blind” to Daryl Maguire’s wrongdoing when the pair were in a close personal relationship while she was premier.

During a tapped call on September 5, 2017, Maguire told Berejiklian, in an apparent reference to a land deal, that “it looks like we finally got the Badgerys Creek stuff done” and he would be able to pay off his debts of $1.5 million. Ultimately, he did not receive the money.

Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian outside her home this week.Credit: Louise Kennerley

In a subsequent call on September 7, 2017, Maguire told Berejiklian that he believed he and an associate had “done our deal”, and Berejiklian replied: “That’s good … I don’t need to know about that bit.”

“No, you don’t,” Maguire replied.

The commission said in its report that “Mr Maguire was deliberately limiting the information he gave Ms Berejiklian, and she was conscious she should not ask about how he was hoping to earn money from his ‘deal’ for reasons concerned with her state of knowledge” about potential wrongdoing by him.

“Ms Berejiklian’s many protestations [at the ICAC] that she did not know anything specific about Mr Maguire’s activities, which she might report to the Commission, reflected her wilful blindness in September 2017, when she told Mr Maguire she did not ‘need to know that bit’, and again on 5 July 2018, when she told him, ‘Don’t, don’t talk… I don’t, I don’t want to know any of that stuff,’” the ICAC said in its report.

“As the Commission has found, Ms Berejiklian refrained from obtaining the final confirmation because she wanted, in the event, to be able to deny knowledge of his activities.”

The ICAC made a significant finding in its report that the then premier Gladys Berejiklian lied to her chief of staff, Sarah Cruickshank, about the nature and duration of her relationship with the then Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire.

Cruickshank gave evidence at the ICAC that Berejiklian called her on July 13, 2018, after Maguire had given evidence at an earlier ICAC inquiry into Canterbury Council. He resigned from parliament days later on August 3.

Daryl Maguire, Gladys Berejiklian and Sarah Cruickshank. Cruickhank is not accused of wrongdoing.Credit: SMH

Cruikshank said Berejiklian told her she had been in a “historical” relationship with Maguire that ended before she became premier in January 2017. In fact, the relationship had continued after this time.

The lie

“The Commission finds that on 13 July 2018, Ms Berejiklian told Ms Cruickshank that she had had a relationship with Mr Maguire before she was premier which amounted to them having a few dinners together from which Ms Cruickshank understood that the relationship was historic and not ongoing,” the ICAC said in its report.

“The Commission finds that in so doing, Ms Berejiklian lied to Ms Cruikshank about her relationship with Mr Maguire and its nature, length and intimacy.”

Berejiklian told the ICAC in 2021 that she did not recall telling Cruickshank in July 2018 that the relationship was historical only.

Berejiklian said Cruickshank warned her after the conversation “not to have anything further to do” with Maguire.

“I did not take that bit of advice, obviously,” Berejiklian said.

Cruickshank’s barrister, Hugh White, put it to Berejiklian at an ICAC hearing in 2021 that she was “not being honest” about what she told Cruickshank about the duration of the relationship.

Berejiklian replied that Cruickshank “is someone of enormous integrity” and “I appreciate that she had a different recollection”.

Duration of the relationship

Berejiklian and Maguire told the ICAC that their secret relationship started in 2015. The former premier said she did not cut off contact with Maguire until September 2020.

Berejiklian told the ICAC that she maintained contact with Maguire from July 2018 until September 2020 because she “felt that I should check on his welfare” after he was forced to quit politics following his evidence at an earlier ICAC inquiry. No corruption findings were made against Maguire in that investigation.

The ICAC said text messages between Berejiklian and Maguire suggested “that from at least about mid-2014, Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire were exchanging messages which suggest that the relationship was one of considerable intensity accompanied by mutual and deep feelings of love”.

The ICAC said in its report that former premier Gladys Berejiklian “displayed a level of deference” to the wishes and demands of her then-partner and Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire.

It pointed to a tapped phone call on Valentine’s Day 2018 in which Berejiklian responded “yes, I know” when Maguire said: “Glad, even when you are the premier, I am the boss, alright.”

Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian and former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire.

The commission also noted Berejiklian had intervened in May 2018 to ensure funding for the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital in Maguire’s electorate, after complaints from Maguire.

“I’ve got you now got you the one seventy million in five minutes,” Berejiklian said. Later, she admonished him: “You can’t have me fixing all the problems all the time.”

The ICAC said in its report that “Mr Maguire had been unable to persuade those responsible for the hospital ‘roadblock’ to include the $170 million allocation in the budget”.

“After Mr Maguire’s call, Ms Berejiklian immediately responded by telling the treasurer to have that amount included as a line item, thus, apparently, overriding Treasury,” the report said.

The ICAC did not make further findings about this funding allocation but used it to illustrate what it described as the deference displayed by Berejiklian to Maguire’s wishes.

The ICAC made a series of 18 recommendations for systemic reform in its report on former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian and the former Liberal MP for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire.

It noted that “the community may conclude that the applicable codes of conduct had little or no effect in discouraging the conduct of Mr Maguire and Ms Berejiklian identified in this report”. It recommended changes to the codes of conduct for ministers and MPs.

NSW upper house president Ben Franklin and lower house Speaker Greg Piper receive the ICAC report on Thursday.Credit: James Brickwood

A focus of the amendments would be to clarify the definition of conflict of interest and the disclosure obligations attached to such conflicts.

“In the Commission’s experience, public officials struggle to take an objective view of the status of their personal relationships,” the ICAC said. “It is imperative that they view their circumstances through the eyes of others.”

Gladys Berejiklian’s employer, Optus, has released a brief statement following the ICAC’s finding that the former premier engaged in serious corrupt conduct.

“Optus acknowledges the ICAC report published in relation to Gladys Berejiklian’s time serving as a Member of the NSW Parliament,” the statement said.

Optus has released a statement on the ICAC report about its employee, Gladys Berejiklian.Credit: Eddie Jim.

“We refer you to Gladys’ media statement and have no further comment to make.”

Berejiklian joined the telco’s executive team in February last year in the newly created role of managing director, enterprise, business and institutional.

Opposition Leader Mark Speakman says he would expect a member of his party to disclose relevant personal relationships such as that between former premier Gladys Berejiklian and former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire, and resign if an ongoing corruption investigation undermined public confidence.

Speaking at a news conference, the Liberal leader and former attorney-general said the revelation that Berejiklian had been in a “close personal relationship” with Maguire came as a shock to him and others in the parliament.

Opposition Leader Mark Speakman in state parliament today.Credit: James Brickwood

“We were all gobsmacked when that emerged,” he said. “If those findings of fact stand up, then, in hindsight, I would have expected as a minister for that to be disclosed.”

Speakman said he hadn’t spoken to Berejiklian, but anticipated her legal team would look at appealing against the ICAC’s finding of serious corrupt conduct.

“We’ll have more to say when we see whether that happens in the coming weeks and months,” he said.

Asked if there was a “grey area” between conduct which was corrupt and conduct which justified criminal charges, shadow attorney-general Alister Henskens said the ICAC needed to strike a balance between stamping out corruption and forcing MPs to resign.

“What we want is a robust integrity agency in our state, but we also want to ensure that it’s hitting the right spot and the people are not being forced out of public life prematurely,” he said.

Berejiklian and Maguire told the ICAC that their secret relationship started in 2015. The former premier said she did not cut off contact with Maguire until September 2020.

Berejiklian told the ICAC that she continued contact with Maguire from July 2018 until September 2020 because she “felt that I should check on his welfare” after he was forced to quit politics following his evidence at an earlier ICAC inquiry. No corruption findings were made against Maguire in that investigation.

The ICAC said text messages between Berejiklian and Maguire suggested “that from at least about mid-2014, Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire were exchanging messages which suggest that the relationship was one of considerable intensity accompanied by mutual and deep feelings of love”.