Berejiklian inquiry LIVE updates Former NSW premier told Daryl Maguire she would throw money at Wagga after he quit politics

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The ICAC will hear today from a central figure in its investigation, former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.

You can watch the hearing live here from 10am.

The ICAC has heard a tapped call in which then NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian discussed her plans for the Wagga Wagga by-election, which was triggered by the resignation of former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire following his evidence at an earlier corruption inquiry.

In the call on July 30, 2018, nine days after the then premier announced Mr Maguire would quit politics, Ms Berejiklian said she didn’t want to argue with Mr Maguire and she needed to “go and chill”.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Thursday last week.Credit:Nick Moir

“Just throw money at Wagga,” Mr Maguire said.

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

She said Mr Maguire had already told her the “top three things” he wanted for the electorate. Mr Maguire suggested one project was being blocked by bureaucrats and Ms Berejiklian said “don’t worry; I can overrule them”.

The ICAC is investigating the circumstances in which the state government granted or promised millions of dollars to two organisations in Mr Maguire’s electorate when he was in a secret relationship with Ms Berejiklian.

Mr Maguire has given evidence that the relationship started in 2015 and continued until shortly before the ICAC started public hearings in this inquiry in September last year.

Ms Berejiklian has denied wrongdoing and has yet to give evidence.

The ICAC has a series of text messages that former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire sent to the then premier Gladys Berejiklian in July 2018 after he gave evidence at an earlier corruption inquiry into a Sydney council.

Mr Maguire said he gave evidence at that inquiry voluntarily. In its final report in March this year it did not make a corruption finding against him but did recommend the Director of Public Prosecutions should consider whether or not to prosecute him for giving false or misleading evidence.

Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian on Friday last week.Credit:Rhett Wyman

“Hokis [an Armenian term of affection], get stuck into me, kick the sh-t out of me. Good for party morale,” Mr Maguire said in one message.

Later he said: “You have some tough decisions to make soon.”

On July 21, 2018, Ms Berejiklian said Mr Maguire would quit politics altogether. Mr Maguire agreed that he urged Ms Berejiklian to announce in the Wagga Wagga by-election, triggered by his resignation, that the Riverina Conservatorium of Music would receive $20 million for a new recital hall.

That announcement was in fact made by the state government.

He said this was a project that benefited his electorate but “if there was a legacy [for me] attached to that, well so be it”.

Former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire says that to date the ICAC has “only” made one recommendation against him, in an earlier inquiry dubbed Operation Dasha.

The then NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on July 21, 2018, that Mr Maguire would quit State Parliament after an earlier corruption inquiry into the former Canterbury Council heard he discussed potential commissions with a local councillor from property deals with a wealthy Chinese developer.

Daryl Maguire arriving at the ICAC in October last year.Credit:Rhett Wyman

Mr Maguire had given evidence in that inquiry on July 13.

In its report in March this year, the ICAC did not make a corruption finding against Mr Maguire in relation to that earlier inquiry but it did recommend the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions consider prosecuting him for giving false and misleading evidence at the hearing on July 13, 2018.

No findings have yet been made in this inquiry, dubbed Operation Keppel.

The ICAC plays another tapped phone call between former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire and then premier Gladys Berejiklian in May 2018.

Mr Maguire said he was concentrating on “my money projects” in his electorate and Ms Berejiklian said: “The more you do that the more easy it will be to win the seat.”

Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian outside her Northbridge office last week.Credit:Rhett Wyman

She added that “we ticked off your conservatorium the other day, so that’s a done deal now”.

This was a reference for $10 million in funding for the Riverina Conservatorium of Music in Wagga Wagga to move from Charles Sturt University to a new government-owned site in his electorate.

Asked if locking in these projects would have made it easier for him to retire at the March 2019 election, Mr Maguire said he was seeking “to deliver on my promises, yes, to make the electorate understand that the Coalition delivers”.

The ICAC plays a tapped phone call between then NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire and Gladys Berejiklian in October 2017.

“Wagga is the centre of the universe, I’ve always said it,” Mr Maguire told Ms 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.

“Keep listening to me. That’s why we need a stadium, that’s why we need a conservatorium, all the things that Sydney has got.”

Gladys Berejiklian and former MP Daryl Maguire were in a secret relationship between 2015 and at least 2018.Credit:AAP, Janie Barrett

He said in relation to other MPs in regional electorates: “F--k 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.”

He said that was why “Katrina”, an apparent reference to Nationals MP Katrina Hodgkinson, was “f--ed”, as was former minister Adrian Piccoli.

Ms Hodgkinson announced her retirement from Parliament in July 2017. Mr Piccoli, the former deputy leader of the Nationals, quit in September that year.

The ICAC hearing has resumed after lunch. Former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire suggested in a tapped phone call in 2017 that a new building for the Riverina Conservatorium of Music in Wagga Wagga could be built “too big”.

Counsel assisting the ICAC, Scott Robertson, asked him if he was suggesting that the private sector could seek to construct the facility larger than necessary and conceal it from government, which was being asked to pay millions of dollars for the development.

Daryl Maguire arriving at the ICAC last year.Credit:Rhett Wyman

The extra space could then be used to create a new “funding stream” by leasing it to commercial operators.

Mr Maguire said he could not agree with that and “I don’t think there was any intent to hide anything”.

He said governments were “very funny about all sorts of things” but ultimately the conservatorium had no money apart from fees and money from the Department of Education.

He was trying to help them find a way to access a new revenue stream.

The conservatorium is not accused of any wrongdoing.

Good afternoon and thank you for reading our live coverage of day nine of the ICAC’s public hearings in Operation Keppel, its inquiry into former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire and former premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The ICAC is investigating the circumstances in which the state government granted or promised millions of dollars in funding to two organisations in Mr Maguire’s electorate between 2016 and 2018, while he was in a secret relationship with Ms Berejiklian.

Ms Berejiklian was the NSW treasurer from April 2015 and premier from January 2017. She has yet to give evidence in this phase of the inquiry but has insisted that “history will demonstrate that I have always executed my duties with the highest degree of integrity for the benefit of the people of NSW who I have had the privilege to serve”.

Daryl Maguire gives evidence at the ICAC on Thursday.Credit:ICAC

Today, Mr Maguire gave evidence in public for the first time since last year. Here’s what has happened so far:

The commissioner presiding over the inquiry, Assistant Commissioner Ruth McColl, SC, rejected an application by Ms Berejiklian’s barrister, Sophie Callan, SC, for parts of Mr Maguire’s evidence about the nature and extent of his relationship with Ms Berejiklian to be heard in private.

Mr Maguire agreed the secret relationship between the pair started in 2015. He said it continued in the second half of 2018 after he quit politics following his evidence at an earlier ICAC inquiry. He agreed with counsel assisting the ICAC, Scott Robertson, that at least as far as he was concerned the pair in fact remained in a relationship “until briefly before the last public inquiry [in September] last year”.

Ms Berejiklian has previously said the relationship continued until at least July 2018, when she asked Mr Maguire to quit politics, and she remained in contact with him until September 13 last year. “After having known him for 15 years, I, I felt that I should check on his welfare and, therefore, for that reason, I maintained that association for that time,” she told the ICAC in October last year.

Mr Maguire said he had a key to Ms Berejiklian’s house and stayed with her in Sydney from time to time. They loved each other and had discussed marriage and children, he agreed.

He admitted that he attempted in 2017 to get confidential information from state MPs about land in Cawdor in the Wollondilly Shire to assist his property developer friend William Leong. There is no suggestion Ms Berejiklian was involved. Mr Maguire told the ICAC he had “no agreement” that he would receive a commission from Mr Leong but it was a possibility.

He also agreed that he lobbied Ms Berejiklian and others about proposals for the state government to spend some $35 million on projects for the Australian Clay Target Association, a gun club in his electorate, and the Riverina Conservatorium of Music. Both are private organisations. The gun club ultimately received $5.5 million to upgrade its facilities while the conservatorium received $10 million to relocate premises with a further $20 million promised (but not yet delivered) for a new recital hall.

“Typical of our bulls--t government,” Mr Maguire emailed Ms Berejiklian in March 2017, when the gun club plan was being scrutinised by bureaucrats and external consultants to ascertain its benefit to cost ratio. He told the ICAC this was slowing the proposal down. Asked if he was inviting Ms Berejiklian to intervene, Mr Maguire said he was “venting” but “you could read that as an invitation”.

Mr Maguire admitted that G8way International, a company through which he pursued a range of commercial opportunities, assisted the Australian Clay Target Association to buy furniture. But he said he had “nothing to do with it” and it was an associate of his who was involved in helping the association. Asked if his associate received a commission, Mr Maguire said: “No one works for nothing, Mr Robertson.” “Exactly,” counsel assisting the ICAC, Scott Robertson, replied.

The ICAC heard that Mr Maguire’s property developer friend Mr Leong was invited to a networking dinner at Parliament House in 2017 where the conservatorium project could have been discussed. But Mr Maguire said he did not attend.

The ICAC is taking a break for lunch and will resume at about 2pm.

“Please return, if you’re going anywhere, at 2pm,” ICAC Assistant Commissioner Ruth McColl, SC, tells former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.

The ICAC has heard a property developer friend of the then NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire was invited to attend a networking dinner at Parliament House in Sydney at which he could discuss a proposal for a multimillion-dollar relocation and upgrade of the Riverina Conservatorium of Music.

Mr Maguire said William Leong was invited to the dinner but ultimately did not attend.

A guest list for the September, 12, 2017 event was tendered at the ICAC.

Mr Maguire is also played tapped phone calls in 2017 in which he discussed a plan for the conservatorium to be given a government-owned building, which could be redeveloped to include commercial space.

This would have provided a revenue stream to the conservatorium, which was not government-owned.

Former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire is now being asked about a multimillion-dollar proposal to relocate the Riverina Conservatorium of Music in his electorate and to upgrade its facilities.

The ICAC has heard that Mr Maguire was lobbying relevant ministers about this proposal from 2015.

Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian on Wednesday last week.Credit:Janie Barrett

Asked if he was lobbying then-NSW treasurer Gladys Berejiklian informally as well as formally in August 2015, Mr Maguire said it was “formal correspondence; there was a process the office followed”.

“We would write to any minister we considered relevant,” Mr Maguire said.

He assisted in organising a visit in Wagga Wagga after she became premier in 2017, and it was one of the first regional areas she visited after being appointed to the top job. She visited the conservatorium during that trip.

As the inquiry has heard, Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire were in a secret relationship between 2015 and at least 2018, when she asked him to quit politics following his evidence at an earlier ICAC inquiry.

Mr Maguire said this morning he believed the relationship continued until last year, shortly before public hearings in the first phase of this inquiry started in September.

Ms Berejiklian told the ICAC last year that she ceased contact with Mr Maguire on September 13 last year.

“Post me asking him to resign from the Parliament [in 2018], and he resigned from the Parliament, he was someone who was in a very bad state,” she said in October last year.

“After having known him for 15 years, I, I felt that I should check on his welfare and, therefore, for that reason, I maintained that association for that time.”

Ms Berejiklian has denied wrongdoing and is slated to give evidence at the ICAC from Friday.

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