Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire: everything we know as ICAC corruption report comes down
They discussed marriage and babies before scandal ruined both their careers in politics. Now the ex-premier and her secret former lover are in even deeper trouble.
Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian and her former lover Daryl Maguire engaged in corrupt conduct, the state’s anti-corruption watchdog has found.
NSW Speaker Greg Piper received the long-awaited findings from ICAC on Thursday and said two former MPs had engaged in “corrupt conduct”.
Ms Berejiklian, who has moved on with new partner Arthur Moses, a barrister, has taken an executive job at telco Optus since leaving politics, but the corruption findings against her now cast a long shadow.
Here’s a recap of the case:
What is Operation Keppel?
Operation Keppelwas an investigation led by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption which began examining whether former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire improperly used his parliamentary office for financial gain between 2012 to 2018, before attention turned to then premier, Gladys Berejiklian.
Beginning in late 2020, the public hearings heard Mr Maguire tried to use his position and network in Macquarie Street to stitch together a number of profitable ventures for himself, including helping property developers resolve regulatory and planning headaches.All ultimately unsuccessful, his ventures included an illegal “cash for visa” scheme, in which he used his parliamentary office as a drop off point for payments.
When he finally was called as a witness, Mr Maguire admitted he had “monetised” his parliamentary position, including arranging for a Chinese delegation to meet then Premier Barry O’Farrell at his office, before sending them an invoice charging for the “introductory service”.
But it an extraordinary public hearing, then premier Gladys Berejiklian revealed under questioning she had been in a “close, personal relationship” with Mr Maguire for several years and until as recently as she had begun giving private evidence to ICAC.
Almost a year later, ICAC announced the inquiry would be broadened to examine whether Ms Berejiklian had engaged in conduct that “constituted a breach of public trust”, namely through her failure to disclose her relationship with Mr Maguire.
She resigned as premier later that day.
What was Gladys Berejiklian accused of?
Commencing in October 2021, the refocused Operation Keppel inquiry considered whether Ms Berejiklian’s failure to disclose her relationship constituted a conflict of interest when she promised or awarded grant funding to two projects in his Wagga Wagga electorate.
Then treasurer, ICAC heard Ms Berejiklian advocated on behalf of a multimillion-dollar grant in Mr Maguire’s relationship in 2016 despite there being a “flimsy” and “deficient” business case behind the grant application.
In an intercepted call played during the public hearings, Ms Berejiklian told Ms Maguire she would sack the bureaucrat handling another proposal in Wagga Wagga, $20m for the Riverina Conservatorium of Music — after he complained about “roadblocks” on his “money projects”.
In another call from 2018, Mr Maguire said: “Just throw money at Wagga,”
“I’ll throw money at Wagga, lots of it, don’t you worry about that,” Ms Berejiklian replied.
Despite the pair discussing marriage and children, Ms Berejiklian downplayed the significance of the relationship, while insisting that if she had suspicions about Mr Maguire’s impropriety she would have reported it to the corruption watchdog.
In August last year, telco Optus recruited Ms Berejiklian as managing director of enterprise and business.
What corruption did ICAC find?
Ending 18 months of uncertainty since her resignation as premier, the Independent Commission Against Corruption concluded that Ms Berejiklian failed to act on Maguire’s conduct and must have known that she needed to report it to ICAC. It said she did not do so in order to “protect herself and him from the Commission exercising its investigative powers”.
The Commission called this behaviour a “grave misconduct” that “undermined the high standards of probity that are sought to be achieved by the ministerial code which, as premier, Ms Berejiklian substantially administered”.
Berejiklian’s conduct was found to have not only been corrupt, but also to have breached the public trust after she sought to award a $5.5m government grant to the Australian Clay Target Association (ACTA), in Maguire’s electorate, without disclosing to colleagues the nature of her close, personal relationship with him. At the time Ms Berejiklian was the NSW Treasurer.
It also found that she “partially exercised her official functions” in relation to her decision-making over a $10m grant to the Riverina Conservatorium of Music, also located in Maguire’s electorate, and which “she knew was advanced by Maguire”.
In relation to awarding funding to the ACTA, the commission found that Ms Berejiklian took actions in circumstances where she knew Maguire was its principal proponent, including elevating the proposal to the government’s Expenditure Review Committee, and supporting it, on December 14, 2016.
It found that, as premier, she encouraged staff to follow up on the progress of the proposal after it had cleared the ERC process. “This included by communicating a request that the initial benefit – cost ratio (BCR) calculation of 0.88, by the Department of Premier and Cabinet Investment Appraisal Unit, be revisited. This ultimately led to it achieving a BCR satisfactory for Infrastructure NSW to approve its funding,” the commission said.
Who is Daryl Maguire?
One of Mr Maguire’s earliest jobs was as a mechanic in Griffith. He later moved to Wagga Wagga, where he ran a Harvey Norman franchise and left a impression. Owner Gerry Harvey called Mr Maguire an “eight out of 10 saleman”.
“Some people love being the centre of attention and they like doing their own ads and people recognise them, and he was very, very good at that,” Mr Harvey told The Weekend Australian.
He became a state Liberal MP first elected into the seat of Wagga Wagga in 1999 and rose to become the government whip under the premierships of Barry O’Farrell and Mike Baird. He later became a parliamentary secretary for rural and regional affairs, and veterans.
Almost 20 years after he entered Macquarie Street, Mr Maguire was hauled in front of an ICAC hearing, the Operation Dasha probe into corruption in Canterbury City Council. Phone taps during public hearings revealed Mr Maguire, alongside several Canterbury councillors, had sought payments for a property deal.
Initially refusing to resign from office, Mr Maguire’s life slowly, then suddenly, fell apart.
The subsequent Operation Keppel investigation, led by the surgical counsel assisting Scott Robertson, methodically unpackaged the longstanding MP’s various schemes to corruptly use his parliamentary office to turn a profit.
Handed down in 2021, the Operation Dasha report referred Mr Maguire to the Director of Public Prosecution to consider possible criminal charges for giving false evidence during the corruption probe. He was charged on June 2, 2023.
In November last year, Maguire was also charged with criminal conspiracy over his visa fraud scheme when he was in office. Federal prosecutors alleged he, along with his offsider, he confected false or misleading documents as part of the migration scam.
ICAC on Thursday made numerous corrupt findings against Maguire as well, including that he improperly used his office and misused his role as an MP to “advance his own financial interests and the commercial interests of his associates”.
“Other misuse of his office as an MP included attempting to advance his own private financial interests and/or those of people associated with him in connection with the sale and/or development of land in NSW,” the ICAC report said.
Why has ICAC taken so long to reach a decision?
After finalising the public hearings in November 2021, many expected ICAC’s report to be handed down within months. Almost two years later it still hadn’t materialised and the agency and assistant commissioner Ruth McCollfaced criticism over the sluggish delivery.
In January, ICAC announced the report would be delayed until after the NSW election, saying it was unlikely to be completed until the “second quarter of the year”, noting the “complex matters” and extensive investigation undertaken by the agency. The two public inquiries proceeded over 30 days, over 2800 pages of transcript, 516 exhibits equally about 10,600 pages and 957 pages of submissions.
What happens now?
A summary of the two-volume report published on Thursday indicates that the ICAC is now seeking the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions on whether criminal proceedings should commence against Maguire, however it has stopped short of pursuing charges against Ms Berejiklian “for any offence”.“The Commission is not of the opinion that consideration should be given to obtaining the advice of the DPP,” it said.
Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire are yet to publicly address the ICAC findings.
