Determination and a ferocious work ethic.
Those characteristics came to define the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian – the state’s first female treasurer who went on to be one of the most popular premiers of the modern era, and who led NSW through the worst of the Covid pandemic.
It was these qualities she chose to highlight as she responded to the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s damning finding on Thursday that she had engaged in “serious corrupt conduct”.
“At all times I have worked my hardest in the public interest,” she said. “Nothing in this report demonstrates otherwise.”
But the public will also remember her for a third trait that led to her downfall: her obsessive secrecy.
A review of media over the years reveals how little we really knew of Berejiklian.
There were the small nuggets offered up about her life before politics: her twin was stillborn; at school she was extremely hard working, the school captain and a good student; her parents were Armenian immigrants; she had two sisters and she was close to her family.
It was just enough to add humanity to the public persona.
In a world where famous women are often analysed through the prism of what they wear, who they date and how they juggle work and family, Berejiklian seemingly found a way to discourage questions about her personal life.
She favoured suits by the designer Anna Thomas that were understated and rarely drew comment. Her hair was always the same.
She was never photographed out on dates and rarely in settings other than work.
She seemed to be at work 24/7 and, as we were to find out during the Icac hearings, even colleagues had no idea about her personal life.
So when her longstanding relationship with the former state member for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire, surfaced in October 2020, during Icac’s first round of hearings in Operation Keppel, it came as shock – to fellow MPs, to the public and even those closest to her, including Matt Kean, a factional ally and minister in her government.
Maguire was 12 years older and a country MP with a mediocre political career. Among colleagues he was known as Dodgy Daryl because he often talked of his business plans. But most saw him as a Walter Mitty character, a dreamer rather than a schemer.
Zac Bentley, who claims to be one of only two people to have worked for both Berejiklian and Maguire, told Icac he always knew the pair had an “old relationship” as colleagues but had never suspected they were romantically involved.
“I literally spat my water out,” Bentley says of learning about the secret five-year relationship.
“These are two people I’ve known quite well and the fact that I had no knowledge of it … yeah, it was quite shocking.”
The Sydney Morning Herald journalist Alexandra Smith says in her book The Secret that Maguire was Berejiklian’s first and only boyfriend.
She describes Berejiklian worrying after university about not having a boyfriend and later studiously avoiding all questions about her personal life.
At Icac Berejiklian described herself as “a very private person” as her explanation for keeping the relationship with Maguire secret.
But with that came peril. Everyone in public life will at times face dilemmas when it comes to choosing between the personal realm and their jobs.
Sometimes there is an obvious conflict of interest. Sometimes it’s more subtle. For a premier there are constant shoals to be navigated.
That’s why governments – Berejiklian’s included – have a ministerial code of conduct which requires disclosure to colleagues of anything that might impinge on the way they carry out their duties.
Without a sounding board, Berejiklian’s obsession with secrecy left her isolated and relying on her own judgment.
A sense of dread
Maguire’s life began unravelling in 2018, when Icac revealed in a separate inquiry that he had been caught on a phone intercept talking to the mayor of Canterbury council, Michael Hawatt, during an investigation into corruption in development decisions.
Maguire was “bycatch”. The phone intercepts of him seeking to acquire approved sites for a large Chinese developer, Country Garden, set off a separate investigation – Operation Keppel – which focused on whether he had misused his position as an MP.
Facing serious questions, Maguire resigned first from the Liberal party then from parliament.
At the Keppel hearings, which began in October 2020, Maguire acknowledged he had used his position as an MP in his dealings and was hoping to be paid commissions on the land deals. Allegations of a cash-for-visas scheme run from his office also emerged.
But it was the revelation of Berejiklian’s relationship with Maguire that caused the sensation.
On that fateful day she was called to give evidence, most had expected it to be routine – perhaps testimony about what her government knew about his dealings.
That morning, Monday 12 October, she told Kean something “embarrassing” would emerge. Even then, she didn’t give him the details.
One can only imagine her sense of dread.
Icac had caught intimate conversations between the premier and Maguire on phone taps.
“Ms Berejiklian, have you ever been in a close personal relationship with Mr Maguire?” asked the counsel assisting Icac, Scott Robertson SC.
“That’s correct,” she replied.
There was a brief moment as the meaning sank in – then all hell broke loose.
Over the next few days the incredibly private Berejiklian endured personal phone calls and texts between herself and Maguire being played in public. In most of them Maguire talked, outlining his get-rich schemes, while Berejiklian listened. He referred to her as hawkiss, an Armenian term of endearment.
Sometimes she sounded bored, as though she was only half listening. On one occasion, as he was updating her on a business deal, she responded: “I don’t need to know that.”
The release of Icac’s report has revealed more and darker details of the relationship. Icac chose not to play some tapes or reveal some text exchanges at the hearings in an attempt to protect Berejiklian’s privacy.
But her insistence that the relationship was not of sufficient status to warrant disclosure to colleagues, and her legal arguments that Maguire was not “family” within the meaning of the ministerial code, prompted Icac to include some in the report.
The couple exchanged texts daily, went on holidays together and both referred to her Sydney residence as “home”, discussing mundane things like the need to buy bread for the household.
But Icac also published texts and phone exchanges that demonstrated the level of influence, even control, Maguire had over her.
In one exchange Maguire complains that she was mean to him, presumably in public.
“Normally you’re the boss, and it’s hard when we have to switch it around, that’s the truth,” Berejiklian told Maguire in an intercepted phone call in February 2018.
“Glad, even when you are the premier, I am the boss, all right,” Maguire said.
“Yes, I know,” Berejiklian replied.
During a private examination, Berejiklian told Icac it was difficult to deal with the power imbalance in a personal setting. “He wanted to feel equal in the relationship,” she said. She wanted to “make him feel less insecure”.
Adamant she had done no wrong
If Berejiklian had sought advice on how to manage high office and her close personal relationship with a fellow MP, particularly after he came under a cloud, her trajectory might have been different.
But she kept it to herself, convinced, as she later asserted, that she had done nothing wrong. Even her family did not know.
Berejiklian’s longtime trusted former chief of staff, Sarah Cruickshank, gave evidence in 2021 that when Maguire’s dealings became public in 2018 her boss had confessed to a “historic” relationship but told her it had ended before Berejiklian became premier in January 2017. She was worried there might be photos of them together.
Cruickshank told no one, convinced that the relationship was over and there was no threat to the premier. But the relationship continued in secret.
Icac concluded that Berejiklian had lied to Cruikshank about the status of the relationship, and that she had done so because she was worried about the advice that Cruickshank would give.
It almost certainly could have included a reminder of her obligation, as premier, to report any suspicions to Icac. It left her further isolated as she dealt with a political and personal crisis.
Berejiklian acknowledged to the commission that the relationship had ended in September 2020 – a month before the public hearings – when she was summoned for a private hearing and learned for the first time the seriousness of the allegations against Maguire.
After her public appearance in October 2020, there was discussion among colleagues about whether she should step down. Factional adversaries began agitating but the stubborn and determined Berejiklian was adamant she had done nothing wrong. She intended to stay.
Her praetorian guard, the ministers Kean and Don Harwin, were sent out to shore up her leadership. She survived.
An ‘inclination to support’
But it was not the end of the matter. Inevitably journalists and the opposition began reviewing government grants and decisions that might have favoured Wagga Wagga, and asking what role Berejiklian might have played.
Maguire had done well by his electorate. He had lobbied hard for $30m to establish a Wagga Wagga conservatorium of music, and the government gave $5.5m for the Australian Clay Target Association to build a conference centre in 2017.
Documents showed that Berejiklian had expressed an “inclination to support” the shooting grant, which Maguire had lobbied for, despite a departmental recommendation against the funding.
The Icac report also reveals that during a phone call in 2017, Berejiklian told Maguire: “We ticked off your conservatorium the other day, that’s a done deal now.” The grant was not given until after Maguire’s resignation.
After he stepped down, the Liberals were concerned about holding his seat at the byelection.
“Just throw money at Wagga,” Maguire said in another intercepted call on 30 July 2018.
“I’ll throw money at Wagga, lots of it, don’t you worry about that,” Berejiklian replied.
During cabinet discussions about the grants she did not tell a soul that Maguire was her boyfriend.
Nearly a year later, Icac decided it had questions for Berejiklian about her own conduct.
In relation to the grant to the Australian Clay Target Association, it concluded “that Ms Berejiklian did consciously prefer the ACTA proposal for a reason which was unacceptable, namely, her close personal relationship with Mr Maguire.
“It rejects her evidence to the contrary. The circumstances in which it came onto the [expenditure review committee] agenda bespeak irregularity, all of which was within her control.”
The $20m grant to fund the Riverina Conservatorium of Music came after Maguire’s resignation and in the shadow of a looming byelection. The conservatorium was a pet project of Maguire’s and he had fought hard for it to be located in Wagga over other regional towns.
“The Commission finds that the evidence is compelling that in approving the funding reservation for RCM Stage 2, Ms Berejiklian breached clause 6 of the ministerial code by exercising her official functions partially in favour of RCM Stage 2 improperly for her own private benefit – namely, the benefit in maintaining or advancing her close personal relationship with Mr Maguire,” Icac said.
Pork barrelling – the practice of allocating grants to achieve political outcomes – had until this point been seen by both sides of politics as part and parcel of federal and state politics. Berejiklian herself said in 2020 it was “not an illegal practice” and something that was practised by “every government”.
But last year Icac published a report warning that it could, in some circumstances, amount to criminal conduct. That included when a merits-based scheme was run in such a way as to dishonestly favour political and private advantage over merit, or if the minister deliberately exercised a power to approve grants in a manner that favoured family members, party donors or party interests.
This case involves grants given for personal reasons but Icac makes it clear that it was the taking into account of reasons other than good public policy that were the problem.
Even though Icac has now found Berejiklian engaged in corrupt conduct and breached her duties as the chief minister under her own government’s code, many will still feel sympathy for her – and criticise the commission. The former premier will not face criminal charges and is considering appealing.
Some will paint her as the victim of an unscrupulous man, who is now facing criminal charges as a result of his actions, and could face more as a result of Operation Keppel.
But people also expect their politicians to be worldly and wise, and to seek good advice.
Ultimately it was Berejiklian’s obsessive secrecy and her resulting isolation that cost her so dearly.
