Numb and dumber: Gladys’ affair to forget

Leadership in the spotlight ... NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian after giving evidence at the ICAC in Sydney on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

The plotting began even while NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was still giving evidence on the stand at the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

She had told her close colleagues her appearance at the inquiry would be short and uneventful. Routine.

The subsequent revelation of her close personal relationship with the disgraced former MP at the centre of the corruption probe, Daryl Maguire, spanning several years, blindsided MPs.

It was explosive.

“Most of us are numb. Everyone was like ‘What the hell?’ ” one MP said.

Another MP remarked: “No one was ready for it.”

A third said of his shock over Berejiklian’s decision to grow close to Maguire: “I wouldn’t give him the time of day, let alone anything else.”

The NSW Premier’s political future is uncertain.

Her position is weak and despite her efforts to hang on, she may not survive the week.

Incredulous ministers ask how Berejiklian could have continued a relationship with Maguire until just a few months ago when she had sacked him over corruption allegations two years ago.

What does this say about her political judgment?

Berejiklian issued a press release in July 2018 demanding Maguire’s resignation from the Liberal Party.

“I was shocked by the events of Friday and I spoke to Mr Maguire late that afternoon to express in the strongest possible terms my deep disappointment,” she said in the statement.

Yet she admitted at the ICAC hearing on Monday that her relationship with Maguire continued for another two years.

She mounts the defence of compassion, saying she was concerned about her friend’s welfare, he was in a dark place, having already lost his career.

From her colleagues’ perspective, there’s disbelief and shock that the Premier, who defines herself by her integrity, would continue a relationship with a man she sacked from her ministry, from parliament and from the party over corruption allegations.

It has exposed her as an appalling judge of character. She took an inexplicable risk in continuing a relationship with a lobbyist under ICAC’s close watch.

It’s an incomprehensible decision that has jeopardised her ­career and the Liberal Party’s electoral fortunes.

Berejiklian is now suffering the indignity of the corruption watchdog broadcasting phone taps of her conversations with her presumed-lover about his questionable business dealings.

How can she have allowed a third-rate country MP to humiliate her like this?

Beyond the humiliation and indignity is the question that will go the heart of ICAC’s investi­gation: Has the Premier breached the ministerial code of conduct by failing to disclose her relationship with Maguire, a lobbyist, when making ministerial decisions about Badgerys Creek?

Berejiklian should have either excused herself from the room on every Badgerys Creek decision or declared the conflict of interest that her partner stood to benefit financially from decisions her cabinet was taking.

In NSW, the code of conduct requires such declarations and it is an issue that falls under the ICAC Act.

Ultimately, ICAC will form a conclusion on whether she acted appropriately in dealing with the information Maguire divulged to her in the private phone conversations about his attempts to clear a $1.5m debt.

While Berejiklian seems genuinely disinterested in many of the phone-taps, she fails to ask Maguire whether he made appropriate disclosures to the pecuniary interest register, and does not tell him how highly inappropriate his interventions are.

“The detail around these deals should have raised enormous alarm bells, certainly after 2017,” one MP said.

Extending the lifeline of Berejiklian’s political future is the doubt over whether her most logical successor, Treasurer Dom­inic Perrottet, has the numbers to get the leadership, given he hails from the conservative faction.

This widens the field of candidate, with other leading contenders including Planning Minister Rob Stokes and Attorney-­General Mark Speakman.

Speakman may emerge as a consensus candidate between the moderate and conservative factions, as did his fellow-Shire resident Scott Morrison in a federal spill before him.

Discussion among the moderate and conservative factions is whether the Premier can survive this scandal.

Gladys Berejiklian with her close friend and now disgraced former Wagga Wagga MP Darryl Maguire.

Faction leaders are examining the transcript of the hearing.

At this point, there is no imminent sign of a leadership challenge, and Berejiklian is making it known she won’t be resigning because of a poor choice she made in her personal life.

The view among those closest to her is that if devastating evidence does emerge at ICAC this week, she will do the honourable thing and resign. “She’s hanging in but if it starts to unravel, I think she’d go,” one Liberal source said.

The attitude from factional heavyweights is to wait and see how the inquiry unfolds this week, but very few MPs are publicly defending her — no one wants to get too close, lest their leadership options be tainted.