Berejiklian promised Maguire she’d ‘throw money at Wagga’ once he left

“I’ll throw money at Wagga, don’t you worry about that”.

A NSW ICAC hearing heard this afternoon that former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian had reassured outgoing local MP Daryl Maguire that his electorate would be looked after after he stepped down. 

ICAC played a 2018 taped phone call between Berejiklian and her then-boyfriend, former Wagga Wagga MP Maguire, in which they discussed an upcoming byelection which was triggered by Maguire’s forced resignation following his evidence to a separate corruption inquiry called Operation Dasha. 

“Just throw money at Wagga,” Maguire said.

“I’ll throw money at Wagga, don’t you worry about that,” Berejiklian replied. 

They discussed the “top three things” he wanted for the electorate and he mentioned that one of them was being held up in the bureaucracy. 

 “Don’t worry; I can overrule them”, Berejiklian said.

ICAC is investigating the circumstances under which $35.5 million was promised to two projects in Maguire’s electorate at a time when he was in the relationship with Berejiklian, who was the treasurer when it started and ultimately became premier. 

Several witnesses have given evidence of his vociferous support and constant lobbying for these projects, which had been viewed in the bureaucracy as being of dubious economic benefit. 

Maguire left politics in 2018 and Berejiklian resigned as premier on October 1. She has denied all wrongdoing and will commence giving evidence tomorrow morning. 

Maguire has given evidence that the relationship started in 2015 and continued until the middle of 2020, just a few weeks before ICAC commenced the public hearings for this inquiry.

In other recorded phone calls, Maguire is heard extolling the virtues of Wagga, a regional centre of 65,000. 

“Wagga is the centre of the universe, I’ve always said it,” Maguire told Berejiklian. “Wagga is going to be the best electorate in the world … keep listening to me and it will be the blazing star of the southern universe … That’s why we need a stadium, that’s why we need a conservatorium, all the things that Sydney has got.”

Regarding other regional MPs, he said “Fuck them, Wagga’s where it’s going to happen.”

“Those other dumbarses just sit there and look after themselves instead of looking after their electorate.”

In other evidence, Maguire was asked by counsel assisting ICAC Scott Robertson if he had received a benefit through G8way International, a company linked to him, in connection with the purchase of furniture for the Wagga gun club at the centre of this investigation. 

“No one works for nothing, Mr Robertson,” Maguire said.

He told the corruption hearing this morning that he and Gladys had loved each other, had been in a relationship which included “physical intimacy” and had talked about having a child together. They had gone on holidays together and he had a key to her house which he never returned, he said.  

“At least so far as you’re concerned, you remained in a close personal relationship until briefly before the last public inquiry [in September] last year?” Robertson asked.

“Yes,” Maguire replied. 

Maguire was asked this morning about his conduct in 2017, in which he appeared to be assisting his friend William Leong, a property developer from Western Sydney. 

Asked about a phone tap from December 2017, Maguire agreed that he tried to get confidential information from state MPs about land in the Wollondilly shire, a long way from his electorate in Wagga Wagga. 

He agreed with Robertson that he had been trying to help Leong because he was a friend and that it would be a “commercial benefit” to him. He also agreed that this action was prompted by an expectation of receiving a commission from Leong and, in doing so, he had “misused his position” as a member of Parliament. 

Earlier in the morning, ICAC assistant commissioner Ruth McColl SC rejected an attempt to close down a public examination of Berejiklian’s private life, saying it was not in the public interest to do so. 

Before Maguire gave evidence this morning, Berejiklian’s barrister Sophie Callan SC requested that any cross-examination about his relationship with Berejiklian to be conducted in private. 

Callan told the commissioner there was no public purpose in “plumbing the depths of the private life of my client”. The possible questions raised “personal privacy concerns of the highest order” for Berejiklian and could lead to humiliation for her.

This is the second time Callan has made Berejiklian’s gender the focus of defence. Two days ago she asked McColl if it was fair that “seven men” had given evidence about Berejiklian’s secret relationship with Maguire and the existence of a possible conflict of interest.  

Robertson asked the commissioner to reject Callan’s application. Holding some of a public inquiry in private would create a risk of creating “a public inquiry in name only”, he said.

“Ms Berejiklian’s conduct is of central relevance to this investigation. The commission needs to understand, to at least some degree … the hallmarks of the relationship.”

He added that he should be allowed to ask “at least some questions” about it. These questions are directly relevant to the threshold for breaches of the conflict of interest disclosure requirements in the NSW ministerial code of conduct. 

The code says: “A conflict of interest arises in relation to a minister if there is a conflict between the public duty and the private interest of the minister, in which the minister’s private interest could objectively have the potential to influence the performance of their public duty.”

“Private interest” in this context could include personal relationships, Robertson said in his opening remarks. 

The hearing continues tomorrow, when Berejiklian will appear.