Gladys Berejiklian arrives at ICAC hearing (Image: AAP)

It’s hard to imagine a more humiliating and damaging day for former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian than the one she faced in NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption hearings today. At various points during the hearing, tapped phone calls with her former lover Daryl Maguire have been played.

Today ICAC heard a 2018 phone call in which Daryl Maguire told Gladys Berejiklian: “Constituents use you every day. You bare your arse to the world every day. We’ve become prostitutes. We have become fucking harlots and prostitutes.”

The complaint centred on political fundraising rules monitored by ICAC. In the call, Maguire said that ICAC was “marginalising the art of politics” and “our job is mixing with people”.

“Don’t get involved in anything you don’t need to, that’s the bottom line,” Berejiklian replied.

Later, Maguire warned her that ICAC could be tapping his phone. 

“Is that going to be a problem?” she replied.

With a camera fixed firmly on Berejiklian’s stony face, she was forced to hear the man she had said was part of her “love circle” speak so disrespectfully to her. It’s challenging for anyone to listen to. 

On the tapes, Maguire is hectoring and badgering, demanding that Berejiklian fund projects in his then-electorate of Wagga Wagga, complaining about delays in the bureaucracy and telling her that he is deeply in debt. Far from the sort of conversation you’d expect between lovers of at least five years, he blusters and swears, sounding like an aggrieved bully demanding her attention. 

Soon after lunch, assistant commissioner Ruth McColl asked a few questions, revealing just how much potential trouble Berejiklian could be in. She asked the former premier if it “never crossed [her]  mind” to declare a potential conflict of interest in relation to her undisclosed relationship with Maguire.

Berejiklian said she did not believe it crossed a legal threshold that required disclosure.

“I think we’ll decide the threshold questions, Ms Berejiklian,” McColl said. And with that the former premier slumped in her seat, her face grim. This was a sharp reminder of the fact that she is no longer in control of the situation and that her hitherto-unsullied 30-year political career was now behind her. She was now a witness in a corruption inquiry and subject to the judgment of NSW ICAC. 

In earlier evidence this afternoon, ICAC played another tapped phone call in which Maguire said that he was concentrating on “money projects” in his electorate, to which Berejiklian replied: “Good, ’cause it helps me too. The more you do that the more easily we’ll win the seat.”

She told him that “we ticked off your conservatorium the other day, so that’s a done deal now”, referring to the NSW government’s approved $10 million in funding for the Riverina Conservatorium of Music in Maguire’s electorate. 

In another call from September 2017, he tells her that he is in debt to the tune of $1.5 million.

“I am poor, I’m telling you, $1.59 million poor,” Maguire said. “Just repeat after me: $1.5 million.”

Asked during the hearings if Berejiklian suspected him of corruption, she replied: “I did not. He was always talking big and I didn’t pay much attention to that. I never thought he was doing anything untoward.

“I don’t even know if I listened properly. He was always talking about pie-in-the-sky things.”

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

The hearing continues on Monday