Gladys Berejiklian ICAC report LIVE updates: Maguire told former NSW premier he was ‘the boss’ in tapped phone call as both found corrupt by commission

Berejiklian won’t face criminal charge

• No criminal charges will be laid against Berejiklian as a result of those findings, but Maguire and two business associates may face charges.

Duration of Berejiklian-Maguire relationship

• Berejiklian and Maguire had told the corruption watchdog that their relationship started in earnest in 2015. However, the ICAC said that “from at least the early part of 2014 onwards”, text messages between the pair were “consistent with physical and emotional intimacy and a romantic relationship having developed”.
• The ICAC said the relationship “finally broke down on 13 September 2020, when Ms Berejiklian said she ceased contact with Mr Maguire approximately a week before the commencement of the first public inquiry” into Maguire’s conduct in 2020, which was extended a year later to examine her own conduct.
• Berejiklian had said she kept in contact with Maguire for his welfare after she asked him to quit politics in July 2018 following his evidence at a previous corruption inquiry.

Findings against Berejiklian

• The ICAC found Berejiklian engaged in serious corrupt conduct by “refusing to discharge her duty” under section 11 of the ICAC Act to report her suspicions about Maguire to the corruption watchdog. The commission concluded Berejiklian had “dishonestly and partially” breached the ministerial code of conduct by failing to report Maguire to the ICAC, and had been wilfully blind to his wrongdoing.
• However, the ICAC said there was insufficient evidence to prove to the criminal standard – beyond reasonable doubt – that Berejiklian had the criminal intent required to establish the offence of misconduct in public office. It meant prosecutors would be unable to prove an essential element of the crime in court. The commission was satisfied to the lower civil standard – on the balance of probabilities – that Berejiklian did act “dishonestly and partially” and it could make a corruption finding against her.
• The commission also made findings of serious corrupt conduct against Berejiklian relating to her involvement in multimillion-dollar grants or promises made to organisations in Maguire’s electorate between 2016 and 2018, when she was treasurer and later premier. However, it did not consider that the conduct was of sufficient seriousness as to merit criminal punishment, an essential element of the offence of misconduct in public office.

Berejiklian’s response

• The former premier released a somewhat defiant public statement in which she said that “serving the people of NSW was an honour and a privilege” and “at all times I have worked my hardest in the public interest. Nothing in this report demonstrates otherwise. Thank you to members of the public for their incredible support. This will sustain me always.”

A potential court challenge

• Berejiklian also hinted at the prospect of a Supreme Court challenge to the findings, saying the report was being “examined by my legal team”.
• In 1992, former premier Nick Greiner and minister Tim Moore became the first people in NSW to successfully challenge corruption findings by the ICAC in court.
• A corruption finding may be struck down by the Supreme Court where the ICAC has made an error of law; its reasoning was not objectively reasonable; there is no evidence that could rationally support its finding; relevant matters were not taken into account or irrelevant matters were taken into account; or there was a denial of natural justice.

Findings against Maguire

• The ICAC concluded Maguire improperly used his office, and the resources to which he had access as an MP, between 2012 and August 2018. The corruption watchdog said that he did so to benefit G8wayInternational Pty Ltd, “a company of which he was in substance a director and whose profits he had an arrangement to share with others”.
• The commission said Maguire “also misused his role as an MP to advance his own financial interests, as well as the commercial interests of his associates, in connection with an immigration scheme that he promoted to his constituents and others connected with his electoral district”.
• He may face criminal charges as a result of his conduct. The ICAC does not conduct prosecutions, which are the responsibility of the independent NSW Director of Public Prosecutions.

This is Michaela Whitbourn signing off on the live blog.

“That is not the case here with regards to Gladys Berejiklian.”

While the former premier did not benefit financially, the ICAC did find that Berejiklian, “in the exercise or performance of her official functions, acted improperly for her private benefit – namely, the benefit in maintaining or advancing her close personal relationship with Mr Maguire”.

Henskens said the ICAC’s verdict was “only one opinion”, and evoked the watchdog’s aborted inquiry into former Crown Margaret Cunneen, SC, and subsequently-overturned findings against former premier Nick Greiner.

“No, you don’t,” Maguire replied.

The commission said in its report that “Mr Maguire was deliberately limiting the information he gave Ms Berejiklian, and she was conscious she should not ask about how he was hoping to earn money from his ‘deal’ for reasons concerned with her state of knowledge” about potential wrongdoing by him.

“Ms Berejiklian’s many protestations [at the ICAC] that she did not know anything specific about Mr Maguire’s activities, which she might report to the Commission, reflected her wilful blindness in September 2017, when she told Mr Maguire she did not ‘need to know that bit’, and again on 5 July 2018, when she told him, ‘Don’t, don’t talk… I don’t, I don’t want to know any of that stuff,’” the ICAC said in its report.

“As the Commission has found, Ms Berejiklian refrained from obtaining the final confirmation because she wanted, in the event, to be able to deny knowledge of his activities.”

“The Commission finds that on 13 July 2018, Ms Berejiklian told Ms Cruickshank that she had had a relationship with Mr Maguire before she was premier which amounted to them having a few dinners together from which Ms Cruickshank understood that the relationship was historic and not ongoing,” the ICAC said in its report.

“The Commission finds that in so doing, Ms Berejiklian lied to Ms Cruikshank about her relationship with Mr Maguire and its nature, length and intimacy.”

Berejiklian told the ICAC in 2021 that she did not recall telling Cruickshank in July 2018 that the relationship was historical only.

Berejiklian said Cruickshank warned her after the conversation “not to have anything further to do” with Maguire.

“I did not take that bit of advice, obviously,” Berejiklian said.

Cruickshank’s barrister, Hugh White, put it to Berejiklian at an ICAC hearing in 2021 that she was “not being honest” about what she told Cruickshank about the duration of the relationship.

Berejiklian replied that Cruickshank “is someone of enormous integrity” and “I appreciate that she had a different recollection”.

Duration of the relationship

Berejiklian and Maguire told the ICAC that their secret relationship started in 2015. The former premier said she did not cut off contact with Maguire until September 2020.

Berejiklian told the ICAC that she maintained contact with Maguire from July 2018 until September 2020 because she “felt that I should check on his welfare” after he was forced to quit politics following his evidence at an earlier ICAC inquiry. No corruption findings were made against Maguire in that investigation.

The ICAC said text messages between Berejiklian and Maguire suggested “that from at least about mid-2014, Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire were exchanging messages which suggest that the relationship was one of considerable intensity accompanied by mutual and deep feelings of love”.