NSW ICAC turmoil: Loyalty a reward for strong leadership

Gladys Berejiklian and I are not friends. She and I have had a somewhat icy relationship over the years she has been the Premier of NSW.

She has complained to me that I don’t write nice things about her. None of that can prevent me from feeling sorry for her now that her private life is splashed all over the newspapers and the broadcast media.

When there is blood in the water the sharks whip themselves into a frenzy.

Five decades of clean, good, honest living is quickly forgotten when a whiff of scandal is in the breeze. When love and passion collide, sound thinking is the first casualty.

Those cabinet colleagues who were aware of the relationship (and there must have been a few) kept her secret. These things never stay secret forever and a secret this juicy is usually leaked by some one eager to seek favour from a “friendly” journalist.

The loyalty her cabinet have shown her is her reward for strong, decisive and successful leadership. It has been a cabinet free of petty feuding, and serious leaks have never seen the light of day.

But every journalist in the country will be watching Daryl Maguire’s performance in the witness box at the ICAC hearing in the coming days.

The saddest aspect of this sordid affair is that it appears Berejiklian, who has led such a clean political life, will face at best a controversial end or at worst an end mired in a very messy scandal. Love is so often blind. In the first blush of romantic attraction, real analysis of the character of the proposed mate is often overlooked.

NSW Opposition Leader Jodi McKay claimed the Premier was complicit with Maguire’s alleged skulduggery because she knew about it and yet did nothing to stop it.

Politics is a brutal business. While McKay’s call for the Premier’s resignation is par for the course, it has additional oomph at the moment because of the extraordinary crisis with which we are dealing.

The Premier is not accustomed to playing off the back foot. We know how good she can be when attacking, but she has so rarely had to defend herself or her government that we wonder how she will fare under sustained attack.

She is fortunate no one in her cabinet is harbouring a baton in their knapsack.

Her Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, would be the logical replacement but he remains loyal. Perhaps the best sign of good leadership is that no one has a knife out for her.

The pain and embarrassment etched into the Premier’s face is testimony to the intense pressure she is feeling. Her fate may rest in her lover’s hands and, given his record, that should give her more cause to look like she is guilty of something, even if it’s just poor judgment.