Don’t believe the spin: Berejiklian was no feminine victim of a bad man

Daryl Maguire, a rotund spiv from Wagga Wagga, and the erstwhile lover of former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian, gives off the vibe of a wannabe big-man hustler whose next big deal is just around the corner, he swears.

The kind of guy who takes you out to dinner but when the bill comes, always seems to have forgotten his wallet. A man of large ambitions – one memo quoted in the Independent Commission Against Corruption report released this week outlines Darryl’s vision for the clubhouse upgrade to the Australian Clay Target Association in his electorate.

The corruption watchdog was scathing about Gladys Berejiklian’s motive for staying with Maguire and keeping the whole thing a secret.Credit: SMH

This was a project over which he constantly lobbied his girlfriend Berejiklian in private, and which she eventually awarded $5.5 million. Bureaucrats joked he wanted it to be called the Maguire International Shooting Centre of Excellence.

Berejiklian was with Maguire for six years, staying with him well after she knew he was being investigated by ICAC, and well after he resigned from the Liberal Party and as Wagga Wagga MP over his entanglement in a cash-for-visa scam and questionable property developer deals.

The vast amount of evidence raked over by ICAC – years’ worth of text messages, and countless conversations – is excruciating on a personal level, and utterly damning on a moral one.

Liberal figures from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to former federal treasurer Joe Hockey and former NSW treasurer Matt Kean, have all defended Berejiklian, saying she is not corrupt, and questioning the integrity of the watchdog itself. They either have not read the report or don’t want to know the truth – it is evident to anyone who has read it that Berejiklian was hopelessly compromised, untruthful and deeply unethical in her failure to disclose her relationship, while actively working to hand out taxpayer money to advance her lover’s interests.

She also knew Daryl was dodgy – she used that very word to describe some of his contacts – and she failed to report him to the watchdog.

Illustration: Reg LynchCredit:

As such she failed in her statutory duties, and failed the people of NSW, whom she claimed to serve with unstinting loyalty. She lied to the ICAC about what she knew of Maguire’s property deals (she said she knew nothing; texts and phone calls showed they discussed it all, in some detail). She lied to her chief of staff about the relationship (she told her CoS that it had ended in 2017 when in fact it was ongoing).

Berejiklian did declare one conflict of interest – a cousin who worked in the public service. But she didn’t declare Maguire, with whom she was in constant contact, who she wanted to marry and have children with, who had a key to her house and who pressured and manipulated her to put taxpayer money into his pet projects.

The ICAC commissioner found her excuses “strained credulity, were inconsistent, circular, and at times bordered on the irrational”.

Berejiklian’s first line of defence, and astonishingly, one that continues to be pushed, is that she simply chose a “bum”, in the words of Dutton on Friday.

That is undoubtedly true – the lengthy, two volume ICAC report shows Maguire to be the greatest of bums. The evidence shows he nags her, manipulates her, and seeks to impose his dominance over her.

Even when she helps him – “We ticked off your conservatorium the other day so that’s a done deal now”, she says in one exchange – he complains it’s not enough.

“That’s the building and ten million, not the rest of it. Not the next stage,” he whinges.

The reports of anti-corruption watchdogs are not usually awash with pathos. But the following exchange recorded between Berejiklian and Maguire filled me with boundless sadness: “Yeh but I am the boss, even when you’re the premier,” Maguire tells his girlfriend, NSW’s most powerful person.

“Yes,” Berejiklian responds, “I know.”

In a private examination during the operation of the ICAC inquiry, Berejiklian was asked about that exchange, and she admitted she was trying to “make him feel less insecure”.

“It’s actually making him feel that because I was the boss during the day, that I wouldn’t necessarily be exercising that relationship in the private relationship,” she said.

This is a relatable portrait of a smart woman who knows she needs to minimise herself in her relationship, or risk losing her man. A woman who knows that her achievements overshadow her partner’s, and who is hyper-aware that his self-esteem is not robust enough to handle the disparity.

Counsel Assisting made submissions regarding “Ms Berejiklian’s concern about Mr Maguire’s insecurity and her preparedness to seek to placate him in order to preserve their personal relationship”.

Moreover, they said, “in circumstances where Mr Maguire became aggrieved and insecure over a perceived social slight, Ms Berejiklian was on notice of a risk that Mr Maguire would suffer greater levels of insecurity and disquiet in the event that Ms Berejiklian did not support projects for which he was a strident advocate”.

What is the correct feminist position here? Who among us has not dated a bum, albeit maybe not one who lobbied us to fund a road near an investment property he just snapped up?

Many women will relate to the emotional labour Berejiklian was undertaking as premier – at work, she had to show no weakness, hold together a state in crisis, and to crush her political foes. At home, she had to pretend she wasn’t, actually, who she was – a powerful and successful woman.

It is notable that former prime minister Julia Gillard was never afforded the same sympathy when details of her own dodgy ex-boyfriend, a union official, became the focus of a major political scandal in 2012.

Gillard always denied any wrongdoing and there was no evidence of any. But nobody gave her a leave pass for making bad boyfriend decisions – something which probably has a lot to do with Berejiklian’s great popularity, and also the stench of misogyny which infused Gillard’s entire prime ministership.

Perhaps the most galling part of Berejiklian’s refusal to admit she has done anything wrong, was her late recognition of her status as a female role model, and “strong independent woman”, as she called herself. In 2020, when the shocking news of the relationship broke, she spoke directly to young women and girls: “Please know that it’s OK to be in public office,” she said, “but it’s also OK to accept that we are far from perfect, certainly I am far from perfect”.

But no one expected her to be – they just expected her to be honest. The idea that Berejiklian was some sort of baffled, guileless feminine victim of a bad man is off-key.

It pushes Berejiklian into the submissive role her dodgy boyfriend wanted for her – a woman who was not the boss of her own decisions.

Jacqueline Maley is a senior writer and columnist.

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