ICAC’s night of red wine, adoration and chat — in the people’s house

Daryl Maguire on the second day of his testimony at ICAC.

Can we go see Gladys, can we go see Gladys?”

So said property developer ­Joseph Alha, who was red of tooth at the time, having guzzled quite a few glasses of red wine.

It was late at night, and he was at NSW Parliament House as a guest of Daryl Maguire.

Maguire in those days saw himself as something of a master networker, when he was actually the member for Wagga Wagga.

Incredibly — this still defies­ credulity — he was also the secret boyfriend of the state’s goody two shoes, Gladys Berejiklian.

Gladys Berejiklian leaves her home ahead of the second day of questioning of Daryl Maguire at ICAC. Picture: Jeremy Piper

And she was then, and is — just checking, yes — still for now the Premier.

Obviously Maguire should not have offered to squire Alha, or ­indeed any property developer, down the hall to see her.

He should not have put her in such a compromising position.

Yet all he seemed to care about was the wine.

Maguire told the Independent Commission Against Corruption investig­ators on Thursday that he made sure to tell Alha to put the wine down, so they weren’t promen­ading — or stumbling or whatever state of perambulation they were in by that stage — down the halls with wine sloshing out of the glasses in their hands.

“I would frown on that,’’ he told the ICAC hearing yesterday.

Because there have to be some standards in public office, obvious­ly.

As to why he’d agreed to introduce his drinking buddy to the Premier in the first place, well, do you need to ask?

Money.

Alha was trying to get a property­ deal done, and Maguire had been promised a clip, and he’s greedy.

But he’s also weak as water, telling the inquiry that he gave in, because Alha kept saying: “Can we go and see Gladys? Can we go and see Gladys?’’

“He was insistent,” Maguire said.

And so he told Alha, “Well, we can go and see”, meaning, see if she was in her office. And she was.

And so in they went — well on the way to being at least half-drunk — and they were there “for probably less than two minutes’’. “Niceties were spoken,” Maguire­ said. “He adores her and wanted to say hello.”

Maguire says Alha didn’t press Berejiklian about the deal he was trying to get done, despite the fact that he had been complaining about the glacial pace of the approval­s process for months.

“The conversation was very short, I’m sure it was less than two minutes,” he insisted. “I don’t even think a photo was taken … and that was it, we were gone.”

Well, he’s gone for all money.

Berejiklian? She was still in her job at close of business, but things weren’t looking good.

Maguire agreed that he had told mates to “just cc Gladys” on their complaints about planning processes and the like, and “I’ll get it to her.” He also promised to “go and complain bitterly” to her about their various concerns.

He also admitted he had been hoping for a $1.5m commission on the sale of land near the new Badgerys­ Creek airport, and agreed that he “kept her informed from time to time”.

In one tapped call, there’s a reference­ to “Jimmy” and a reference to “Badgerys Creek stuff” and the Premier doesn’t respond by saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about’’, or “Who’s Jimmy?’’, or “What is the Badgerys Creek stuff’?”.

So, one assumes the Premier knows something which isn’t quite the same as knowing too much but, gee, it’s getting close.