Daryl Maguire appears via videolink during the ICAC hearing (Image: AAP)

Former NSW MP Daryl Maguire told the corruption hearing this morning that he “loved” Gladys Berejiklian and that she had loved him back. He said the relationship started in 2015 and ended in 2018. 

The relationship with the former NSW premier included “physical intimacy” and they had considered having a child, he said, adding they had gone on holidays together and he had had a key to her house.  

Maguire was earlier asked at the NSW ICAC hearing about his conduct in 2017, in which he appeared to be assisting his friend William Leong, a property developer from western Sydney. 

The inquiry heard a phone tap from December 2017. Asked about it, 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 counsel assisting, Scott 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. 

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

This is the second time Callan has played the gender card. 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.  

McColl rejected Callan’s application. 

Today 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.

The senior counsel seemed to be indicating that part of the defence strategy could be to paint the former premier as a feminist victim of the patriarchy. Would she use that tactic if the premier had been a man in a relationship with a female MP? Highly unlikely. 

Berejiklian gave evidence to a private ICAC hearing late last year that she had been in a “close personal relationship” with Maguire between 2015 and 2018. Maguire, a charisma-free 62-year-old former furniture salesman, has made no public comment on the matter, until this morning. 

ICAC is investigating the circumstances under which $35.5 million was advanced 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 then 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 following evidence to a separate ICAC inquiry and Berejiklian resigned as premier on October 1. She has denied all wrongdoing and will commence giving evidence on Friday. 

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.