A shocker for the Premier State

Illustration: Johannes Leak

Things are bad enough in Victoria and now, in our most populous state of NSW, arguably the best managed in COVID times, we have a decent, competent and very hardworking Premier seemingly unravel in a matter of hours.

Gladys Berejiklian, famous for having no private life, has had her poor judgment exposed in the most mortifying way before an anti-corruption inquiry into Daryl Maguire, who it turns out is both her hitherto undeclared ex and her ex-MP.

Incredibly, she sacked him in 2018 over an unfolding corruption scandal but dumped him as her secret boyfriend only in August this year when she was secretly hauled before an inquiry and played secret recordings exposing their affair. Naive is the most generous way to describe her decision-making. Humiliating doesn’t capture the indignity of a Premier being caught on tapped phones talking about developers and deals.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian leaves her home this morning after ICAC findings of a personal relationship with disgraced MP Daryl Maguire were exposed. Picture: Jeremy Piper

This is a shocking turn of events, difficult to absorb. Her profile had been so firmly established as a dedicated public official that it involved a degree of affectionate mockery. She was a goody-two-shoes, the earnest school captain who went on to become Head Girl of NSW. The worst accusation hurled at her was that she was a bit boring, a technocrat too devoted to process, doing everything by the book.

Yet on Monday, as the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption delved into the affairs of Mr Maguire, the former MP for the regional city of Wagga Wagga, the Premier had to endure public scrutiny of their phone intercepts and text messages.

Now the whole world knows about her sharing in his triumph of a commission on a property deal. Woohoo! she texted at her man’s $5000 windfall. We learned that Mr Maguire, in his role as a fixer and deal broker, was trying to rope in the Premier’s office to clear a bureaucratic logjam.

We overheard as she tried to fend off awkward, potentially compromising details of business affairs that he insisted on sharing. And we know that she knew the fact of his debts, and his schemes to escape them by generating some big fees.

At so many levels, personal and political, this must have been an excruciating ordeal for her, and it’s not over.

Gladys Berejiklian with disgraced MP Darryl Maguire.

The Gladys we thought we knew would be the harshest judge of this failing. She said as much: “If I had done something wrong I would be the first one to consider my position” — with the caveat that she denies doing anything wrong. She frames it as a personal failing that leaves intact her judgment as Premier.

But this painful material is before ICAC only because on its face it represents a potential entanglement of personal interests and public duties. The Premier herself concedes what was being attempted when she protests “this person (her ex) was not able to acquire anything — or his friends, or his associates”. She declares herself shocked and disturbed by what ICAC has revealed to her — and no doubt there are fresh revelations — but she herself is the authority for the proposition that Mr Maguire was not to be trusted in public office.

Yet, having sacked him, she continued the relationship up until some months ago. On Monday, she rededicated herself to the people — repeating the mantra that she has “sacrificed” her life to public office.

There is no doubt that NSW has been fortunate to have her as a Premier, and politicians of her calibre are too rare. But there is a serious question mark over her judgment, and it will not be easily forgotten that she declared a disgraced ex-MP her “numero uno”.