ICAC turmoil: Daryl Maguire: I do have some standards

Dodgy Daryl Maguire did a lot of bad things while he was an MP in NSW. But, he said on Wednesday, he never pimped out Gladys.

We use that word in the business sense: he never took a fee for bringing Chinese businessmen into her orbit, or indeed into the orbit of any of his fellow MPs. That would, he said, be going too far.

What was curious was how ­Maguire — an MP for 19 years — said this with a touch of wounded pride in his voice, like there were some rocks under which even he would not slither. Some, but not many.

As Premier Gladys Berejiklian said, he made fools out of a lot of people, taking one backhander after another, over almost two decades. But did he make a fool of Gladys? Meaning, did he pursue her not for love, but for money?

The question was put to the Premier on Wednesday.

She looked shocked, and said it was for other people to decide.

But, she added, he never got anything out of her, or any of her staff. But oh, how he tried.

Maguire, who was until 2018 the member for Wagga, admitted to so many misdeeds in the ICAC witness box it was hard to keep up.

Yes, he said, he sought to profit from his status a parliamentarian, by taking clips on deals struck ­between Australian producers and Chinese businesses.

Yes, he had monetised his parliamentary office for his own personal gain. Yes, he had used his status as an MP to advance his own financial position.

Yes, he had accepted $3500 in cash in the back seat of a taxi, ­ostensibly to cover expenses for a business trip.

Yes, he had profited from a vile deal, under which Chinese students effectively had to pay their own wages for years on end in ­exchange for visas.

Yes, he had been appointed chair of one of the many extremely shady “parliamentary friendship groups” that flourish in NSW like furballs in a cat’s throat (for the record, pretty much all those groups are formed just like a furball).

Yes, he had used his role as chair of the “Asia Pacific Friendship Group” as a networking ­opportunity, with the aim of making money.

Yes, he agreed that he had also turned his parliamentary office in Sydney’s Macquarie Street into an office for a private company rather cheesily called “G8way Inter­national” (it’s pronounced gateway, get it?).

He hid the fact that he was running his company, and never declared his involvement, nor any income received, to parliament.

All this he did with profit in mind. He wanted money in his tin, cash in the can, a cut on the deals.

But then, when it came to the question of whether he’d ever pimped anyone out, meaning, whether he’d ever taken a fee in exchange for introducing this business or that one to an MP or, indeed, the Premier, he suddenly got all forthright in his denials.

“That would be going too far,” he insisted.

To be clear, his former girlfriend — Berejiklian — wasn’t premier at the time. She has said she knew nothing of her shady man’s desire to cut deals on everything from coal to powdered milk. She is Premier now, however. Her enemies have been busy this week, trying to cast her lover as vector.

She says corruption isn’t contagious (and nor is it sexually transmitted). The quarantining continued on Wednesday, with the Premier opting to have her daily press conference while Maguire was in the witness box.

While he was moaning about a sore back, she was standing firm.

To put that another way, while he was digging a hole, she was digging in.