The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, dined at Daryl Maguire’s Wagga Wagga home with a business associate he partnered with to run a cash-for-visa scheme, Icac has heard.
A massive dump of exhibits uploaded to the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s website on Thursday evening also reveals Maguire tried to convince the federal oil and gas peak lobby group to help him sell Chinese mining technology to its clients.
One of the key allegations against Maguire is that he used his office to help run a cash-for-visa scheme through his silent involvement in a company known as G8wayinternational Pty Ltd, which claimed it had access to “high levels of government” and offered introduction services and visas to Chinese business groups for money.
One of his partners in that company was Phil Elliott, the Wagga RSL director and a close friend of Maguire’s, Icac has heard.
Elliot’s partner, Karen Joan Barbey, told Icac investigators that she had known Maguire for 30 years and met Berejiklian on a number of occasions.
When asked which Liberal MPs she had met, Barbey, a high school teacher with little interest in politics, told investigators: “Um, Gladys – yeah Gladys and oh I don’t – I’m not really good with names. I don’t know. That – just local ones. I don’t know. I’m not big on politics.”
Barbey said she had met Berejiklian at a function, a dinner at a local Wagga Wagga restaurant, and at a dinner at their house.
“There was one at the – one near the underpass. Met her there and I have met her at Daryl’s place,” she said. “We had dinner at night as well and I’m trying to think. Um, I think those – oh and we went to Romano’s [restaurant] for dinner one night.”
The dinner at Maguire’s house was also attended by the premier’s security detail, Barbey said.
Berejiklian has previously told Icac that she knew Maguire and Elliott were friends but that she did not know what their business dealings were.
“I knew that they were friends,” she said on Monday. “I knew that Mr Elliott ran Mr Maguire’s campaigns. I knew him through the Liberal party and, and I also assumed they had mutual interests together but I didn’t know what they were.”
The dump of Icac exhibits – totalling more than 2,200 pages – also reveals that Maguire approached Malcolm Roberts, the former chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (Appea), in a bid to sell petroleum technology.
Roberts told Icac investigators about a meeting he had with Maguire in 2018 at a Canberra coffee shop, during which Maguire tried to pitch a “new enhanced oil recovery technique” developed by a Chinese business, and trying to see whether local industry would be interested in it.
Roberts said Maguire’s approach was unusual. He passed on the information about the new oil technology to some of his members – including Santos – but did not imply that he supported it.
He said Maguire’s approach was different to most MPs, who, in his experience, usually wanted to just connect constituents with an Appea member, not advocate for the sale of a particular product.
“MPs would occasionally be in touch, usually just to find a contact, you know? So, occasionally, you’ll have an MP who might say, ‘I have a constituent who has a problem’ and they will not ... usually do anything other than just connect to parties,” he told Icac investigators.
“So, most recently, for example, I’ve had a federal member ofparliament – who had a local business – that was struggling to work out where they were going to buy their next supply of gas from, and the company soon contacted me directly, to say that their local of member of parliament had suggested they speak to me, whether there was any connections in the industry they should make to see whether there are alternative contracts available.”
The meeting took place after Maguire approached Stephen Galilee, the chief executive of the NSW Minerals Council and a former chief of staff to ex-premier Mike Baird.
When Roberts had failed to respond initially to Maguire, the NSW MP had again asked for the NSW Minerals Council’s help.
“So he then contacted me and said he hadn’t heard anything from Malcolm,” Galilee said. “So then I followed up with Malcolm and Malcolm I think then got in contact with Daryl. I then saw Daryl after that in parliament and he said that Malcolm had contacted him.
“[He] said something like ‘I owe you a beer’.”
The exhibits also reveal that NSW Liberal MP Tanya Davies met with Louise Waterhouse and Daryl Maguire while they were lobbying for a roundabout to be moved to improve land access to the racing heiress’s massive landholding near the western Sydney airport.
The changes would have helped Waterhouse improve the value of her land significantly and aid in either its development or sale, Icac has heard.
In an interview with investigators, Davies says that Waterhouse claimed moving the roundabout would also help lower the terrorism risk to the new airport, because it would give would-be terrorists less run-up towards the runway.
Davies then wrote to the head of the airport to raise the terrorism concerns and Waterhouse’s concerns.
“I thought the argument – from my perspective the argument to me made sense in terms of I ... I was concerned about the terrorist link she raised and also about the fairness in terms of being able to provide opportunities for – for more constituents rather than just favouring one,” she said.
“So I wrote to the airport CEO at the time, because it had a concern around the safety and – and I guess I just wanted to bring it to his attention that – to make sure that that had at least been ticked off or – or considered or addressed.”
She copied the letter to “a couple of the state ministers” so they were aware of Waterhouse’s request too.
The documents detail an extraordinary covert surveillance campaign mounted by Icac officers tracking Maguire as they investigated whether he had used his office for personal gain.
Maguire was followed around Sydney by Icac officers, who monitored him at eateries and the state parliament cafe. Photos were taken of Maguire meeting Chinese property developers, including representatives from the development firm Country Garden, who Maguire was attempting to help buy Waterhouse’s property.
The evidence suggests he told them: “Investments are safe here because of our land titles and Westminster legal system.”
