What we learned today
And that is where I will leave you.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption’s investigation into whether Daryl Maguire improperly used his position as a politician for his own benefit concluded with admissions from the former Wagga Wagga MP on Friday.
Maguire agreed he had breached public trust and improperly used his position as an MP to gain a financial benefit between 2012 and 2018.
Here’s what else we learned:
- Newly public testimony released on Friday afternoon showed Daryl Maguire believed his “close personal relationship” with Gladys Berejiklian may have begun as early as 2013 or 2014, earlier than her evidence of 2015.
- In his evidence, Maguire agreed he told Berejiklian some things about his business dealings, but “limited the information” because telling her too much would put her “in a really difficult position”. He also agreed there were certain things Berejiklian “didn’t want to know” about his business dealings.
- At another point during the hearing, Maguire said he didn’t want Berejiklian to know things that wouldn’t “reflect well on her”. He said he didn’t know why he had spoken in “code” during one conversation with the premier, when he referred to a property developer friend as his friend “with the polished head”.
- Icac referred the “inadvertent” publication of an unredacted transcript of yesterday’s private testimony to the office of the inspector of the Icac, the Sydney barrister Bruce McClintock SC. The Icac commissioner, Ruth McColl SC, apologised to Berejiklian and Maguire over the incident. Berejiklian’s barrister, Arthur Moses SC, was ropable about the publication this morning, calling it a “violation of my client’s privacy and her security”.
- At a press conference, Berejiklian said she had been “let down” by Icac over the publication. “Suffice to say, it has not been pleasant,” she told reporters. She again stood by her evidence to Icac, saying “hand on heart, I did nothing wrong”.
Updated
To be clear, though, the transcript shows that later in the day Maguire seemed to walk that back a little, saying 2014 was “clearer in my mind”.
Robertson:
From your perspective the relationship was a close personal relationship on those two dates that you there identify. Do you agree?
Maguire:
I see that. But 14 was clearer in my mind – 14/15.
Robertson:
So is it right that at least from your perspective, you were in a close personal relationship with Ms Berejiklian in calendar year 2014, is that right?
Maguire:
I originally said 15 and I lean towards 15 still, or late 14. That was, that’s my recollection, somewhere there.
Updated
Maguire says 'close personal relationship' with premier may have begun as early as 2013
OK, the transcript has been published. In it, Maguire suggests his “close personal relationship” that was “distinct from a friendship” with Gladys Berejiklian began as early as 2013.
The premier, and he, have previously said it was 2015.
Here’s the transcript:
Robertson:
Mr Maguire, what I’d like you to reflect on is an answer that you gave to a question that I asked you in the public session, the public inquiry, namely, whether the close personal relationship that you had with Ms Berejiklian in fact started in 2015 or 2016 or whether it in fact at least started at some earlier point in time. Now, I accept that these are the kind of things that develop over time.
Maguire:
Yes.
Robertson:
But what I want you to reflect on, or what I’d like you to reflect on, is whether it’s at least possible that a close personal relationship, a close emotional attachment and close relationship between you and Ms Berejiklian may in fact have been on foot at some time prior to 2015.
Maguire:
Yes.
Robertson:
And so doing the best you can, when do you think the relationship developed into something that could be fairly described as a close personal relationship as distinct from a friendship?
Maguire:
Oh, I don’t know that I could put a date on it. We, we were always good friends and slowly over time the, the relationship developed. I, I couldn’t tell you when it started.
Robertson:
I’m not suggesting for a moment that there’s some magic date.
Maguire:
Yes.
Robertson:
... that you can identify, but would it be fair to say that you were in a close personal relationship with Ms Berejiklian in calendar year 2014?
Maguire:
Yes.
Robertson:
What about 2013?
Maguire:
Yes.
Updated
Just a bit of housekeeping. I’m leaving the blog open because we’re expecting Icac to publish a partially unredacted transcript from yesterday’s private hearing. The excerpt relates to Maguire’s “perspective” on when his relationship with Gladys Berejiklian began.
So, you know, I’m basically just sitting here pressing refresh a lot, to be honest with you.
Updated
Robertson comes to the pointy end.
He asks Maguire whether, between 2012 and 2018, “on more than one occasion you improperly used your parliamentary resources and your position in parliament to gain benefit for yourself and people close to you?”
Maguire:
I agree.
Robertson asks Maguire if he also agrees that he “breached the public trust placed in you as a member of parliament, parliamentary secretary” and as the chair of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for the Asia Pacific.
Maguire:
I agree.
And that’s the end of the evidence.
Updated
OK we’re back.
Robertson is asking about a USB stick that contained data from his electorate office. His staff member Sarah Vasey at some point called him to collect it. Robertson is asking Maguire if he told Vasey the USB stick had also come to an “unfortunate end” in his paddock.
Maguire again says it wasn’t deliberate, to which Robertson replies:
Are you serious?
Updated
We’re taking a short adjournment. Robertson indicates we’re nearly at the end.
Robertson has come to Maggie Wang’s evidence that Maguire told her that his devices, including an Ipad and Iphone had been in an “unfortunate” accident with a piece of farming equipment.
Maguire:
I recall I said a tractor ran over it.
He says that didn’t actually happen, though.
I was just being stupid I don’t know why I said it ... it is a weird thing to say but I said it.
He agrees with the commissioner Ruth McColl that he could have been trying to underline his request for Wang to delete files.
Updated
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has gone into bat for Gladys Berejiklian when asked about the premier not long ago.
Morrison:
Gladys Berejiklian is the premier that NSW needs in these difficult times.
She has been an extraordinary leader, particularly setting, I think, the right bar, the gold standard as I’ve called it, when it comes to contact tracing and testing arrangements here, and outbreak containment.
Updated
Robertson is taking Maguire through various allegations that he destroyed records after he was forced to resign following his previous appearance before Icac in July 2018.
Robertson asks Maguire about a USB stick that contained data from his parliamentary devices.
Maguire says that he “dropped it at the farm gate and it got run over several times”.
But he says it wasn’t deliberate.
Maguire:
No, no, I lost it. I must have dropped it when I got out to open the farm gate and I found it a couple of days later.
Robertson:
You deliberately lost it didn’t you?
Maguire:
No I didn’t, I don’t believe that I did, I don’t recall.
Robertson again pushes back. It was deliberate, he suggests to Maguire.
Maguire:
I didn’t care if I kept it or not but I did genuinely drop it at the gate accidentally ... I don’t know if I had a plan to dispose of that.
Maguire then admits he instructed his staff to “wipe everything” after it became clear he would have to resign from parliament in July 2018.
Robertson puts it to him he did that to keep information away from Icac.
Maguire:
Part of, part of. It wasn’t the overriding factor, but it was a factor.
Robertson then asks Maguire whether he sent a message, through a friend, to his former business associate Maggie Wang instructing her to delete files.
He admits he did.
We’ve previously heard Maguire told Wang that his iPhone and iPad had been in an “unfortunate” accident with his tractor.
Robertson:
Again the purpose of that was to encourage Ms Wang to destroy information that might implicate you [and] keep it away from organisations like this commission.
Maguire:
Yes.
Updated
We’re now going to a series of text messages between Maguire and Berejiklian.
Robertson takes Maguire to the message he sent Berejiklian in 2014 in which he states that he expected to receive $5,000 in commission from the sale of a motel.
Berejiklian replied:
Congrats!!! Great News!! Woo hoo
Maguire doesn’t recall the message, or the sale.
Robertson puts to him that there were “occasions on which you didn’t disclose income you in fact received in relation to outside business activities.
I don’t know ... I cannot for the life of me recall this.
Robertson makes the question broader. Any occasion? He reminds Maguire of the cash-for-immigration scheme.
Maguire:
Ah, yes.
Updated
Part of the issue here is that UWE was not actually situated in Wagga but a neighbouring seat. Maguire though says that he “asked the local member to take an interest ... he chose not to”.
Maguire says his representations on behalf of the company were not related to potential future employment.
We’re talking about Maguire’s involvement in a dispute that the company UWE was having with a Chinese shareholder called Shanghai Dairy Group.
Maguire, we’ve previously heard, had discussed the possibility of a board position or consultancy role with UWE. Robertson is asking Maguire what he did to help UWE resolve the dispute.
He raised it with the minister for agriculture, Niall Blair, and the former trade minister, Stuart Ayres. He also threatened to fly to China to deal with it himself.
But Maguire says he genuinely wanted UWE to succeed because they were hoping to open a plant in Wagga Wagga that would have created about 16 to 20 jobs. It was “a large investment in the city so I wanted them to succeed”.
But Robertson is taking Maguire to a letter he wrote to a party committee secretary in China on a parliamentary letterhead in which he raised a “potential loss of face by my political leaders”.
Robertson suggests he did not have authority to write that letter, and that it wasn’t appropriate.
Maguire says he was trying to “solve that problem”, and that the loss of face “from my perspective would have occurred”.
“I felt it appropriate at the time”.
Updated
OK we’re back.
Counsel assisting the commission, Scott Robertson, begins by apologising for the delay.
In the last 10 or 15 minutes he says the commission has been discussing how to deal with evidence taken in private before lunch yesterday. Yesterday, Robertson said the personal nature of the matters he needed to discuss outweighed the public interest in having it remain public.
They’ve been talking about how to deal with that evidence. He’s proposed to tender an aspect of the private transcript from yesterday regarding Maguire’s “perspective as to when the relationship with Ms Berejiklian began”. While they’ve been in private he has been asking further questions about the “rough dates” on which the relationship began.
He says he will seek to lift the two non-publication orders covering parts of the private transcript which deals with those questions at the end of the hearing.
He also says he will “endeavour” to finish his questioning of Maguire today.
Updated
While we wait, a few of Gladys Berejiklian’s ministers have been out today defending the premier.
Here’s what the minister for sport, Stuart Ayres, had to say at a press conference earlier:
She’s led the state through its most traumatic 12 months in many, many years. She’s done an outstanding job through drought, for bushfires, again through Covid.
The outpouring of support from the people of NSW for her over the last couple of weeks shows that most importantly they are supporting her and they have her full support as well.
She’s not being investigated, let’s let this woman get on with doing a job that she’s exceptionally good at, and that’s leading the people of NSW.
I think she’ll be the premier next week, I think she’ll be the premier next month, I think she’ll be the premier that leads government to the next election, and I think she’ll keep leading NSW for many, many years to come.
Updated
I should just point out that we’re now beyond the lunch adjournment.
I won’t speculate on what’s going on, but hopefully they aren’t too much longer.
Correct.
When the #icac live stream is delayed you gotta assume the real good goss is flowing
— Perry Duffin (@perryduffin1) October 16, 2020
Lunchtime recap: what we've learned so far
OK let’s do a quick lunchtime recap.
Here’s what we learned this morning:
- Icac has referred the “inadvertent” publication of an unredacted transcript of yesterday’s private testimony to the Office of the Inspector of the ICAC, the Sydney barrister Bruce McClintock SC. The Icac commissioner, Ruth McColl SC, apologised to the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and Daryl Maguire over the incident. Berejiklian’s barrister, Arthur Moses SC, was ropable about the publication this morning. He called it a “violation of my client’s privacy and her security”.
- At a press conference, Berejiklian said she had been “let down” by Icac over the publication. “Suffice to say it has not been pleasant,” she told reporters. She again stood by her evidence to Icac, saying “hand on heart, I did nothing wrong”.
- In his evidence, the former Wagga Wagga MP agreed he told Berejiklian some things about his business dealings, but “limited the information” because telling her too much would put her “in a really difficult position”. He also agreed there were certain things Berejiklian “didn’t want to know” about his business dealings.
- At another point during the hearing, Maguire said he didn’t want Berejiklian to know things that wouldn’t “reflect well on her”. He said he didn’t know why he had spoken in “code” during one conversation with the premier, when he referred to a property developer friend as his friend “with the polished head”.
- Maguire was pressed on a conversation with the racing heir Louise Waterhouse in which he said “all that stuff is Icac-able”. He agreed he was “concerned” that if the “extent” of his involvement in a western Sydney land deal became public it “might lead to questions being asked” about whether it was appropriate.
Updated
Arthur Moses SC is up again. He’s suggesting that Icac may have inadvertently published the Premier’s phone number yesterday. There’s some discussion about whether or not that is indeed the case. And we’re told it’s already been taken down. But out of “an abundance of caution” McColl puts a suppression order on the number.
And that’s lunch! Could someone maybe bring me a sandwich or a coffee or like a large container of aspirin?
Updated
As an aside, we’re talking about a dinner at the Marigold restaurant on George Street in Sydney.
Turns out Maguire’s a fan:
They serve great food.
Maguire's friend 'with the polished head'. Former MP tells Icac he can't remember why he spoke to Berejiklian in 'code'
Another intercept is played. We first heard this one on Monday. In it, Maguire tells Berejiklian he “introduced my little friend” and adds: “You know my little friend?”
“Not really. I don’t need to know,” Berejiklian replies.
Maguire refers to his friend “with the polished head”, then says, “you don’t need to know what for”.
Maguire confirms to Icac that he was referring to Joseph Alha, his Sydney property developer friend. Robertson asks why he was speaking in code to Berejiklian.
Maguire says he doesn’t know.
Robertson asks Maguire why he said: “you don’t need to know what for”.
Maguire:
It was on a need to know basis.
Maguire says he didn’t want to “burden her with any detail she didn’t need to know”.
But Robertson wants to know whether that was the extent of it. Or, did Maguire not want Berejiklian to know information which she might need to take action on. That is, alert someone about what Maguire was doing.
My best recollection or my answer to you is that there were things happening as you know around the place [that] I just didn’t think she needed to know whatever it was were talking about it didn’t need to be said.
Robertson keeps going. Did Maguire not want to “burden Berejiklian with detail” that wasn’t relevant, or did he not want her to have information which “might not reflect well on you, or perhaps her”.
Maguire:
I’d suggest her. That didn’t reflect well on her.
Updated
Maguire tells Icac he avoided 'burdening' premier 'with detail' of affairs
Robertson is asking Maguire about the offer to join the UWE board. Maguire says it was “scant on detail” but either a board position or consulting job had been discussed around February 2018. Maguire had consulted a parliamentary ethics adviser about the offer. It never progressed, though, Maguire says.
We then have a long exchange between commissioner Ruth McColl SC and Maguire about UWE, the structure of its board and difficulties it was having with a Chinese-government linked shareholder.
UWE were talking about opening a factory in Wagga Wagga. It would have meant about 30 jobs, Maguire says, and he “thought it was exciting”.
I actively worked hard to try and get an outcome for them so they could build more factories.
But Robertson asks whether it was “right to say though that in 2018 you were hoping at least in post parliamentary career you were hoping to have some kind of business relationship with Mr Liu?”
Maguire:
I don’t recall there was a particular offer we’d had brief conversations about joining a board, some consultancy, it wasn’t deep in detail it was merely talk.
We’re played an intercept from May 2018 in which Maguire tells Berejiklian that “Jimmy” has “made me an offer”. Berejiklian replies: “You stay away please.”
Robertson suggests to Maguire that on the basis of that call Maguire was “at least keeping [Berejiklian] informed as to kind of things you were thinking about”.
Maguire:
Yes.
Robertson suggests Berejiklian’s response suggested she was saying “that is a matter for you to work out”.
Maguire:
Yes.
Robertson:
In relation to your communication with Ms Berejiklian around that time in 2018 when you’re trying to set yourself up ... you gave her some information at least in a general way but there was a line by which you would not give her too many details.
Maguire:
My best recollection would be yes.
Robertson asks whether Maguire was trying to avoid putting her in a difficult position.
Maguire:
I’d call it burdening her with detail.
Updated
Another intercept. Maguire and Berejiklian again. It’s a long call in which they’re discussing his financial difficulties and plans for the future. At some point in the call Maguire tells Berejiklian that “Country Garden has fucking fallen through”.
Is that a reference to Country Garden no longer being linked to a purchase to the Waterhouse development, Robertson asks.
“Yes,” Maguire eventually says.
He also makes a reference to “Jimmy” in the call. Is that “Jimmy” a reference to Jimmy Liu managing director at UWE, a company Maguire was seeking a board position with. He agrees.
Robertson asks Maguire whether as of February 2018 call he was concerned about his financial position and future. Yes, Maguire says.
Updated
We hear another intercept. It’s Maguire and Waterhouse again.
He tells her about the meeting he’s arranged with Sarah Hill from the Greater Sydney Commission. She asks whether she should involve the local MP. He tells her no.
Back in the room, Robertson puts it to Maguire that he told her not to involve anyone else “in part so you could get the credit”.
Maguire:
Ah, yes.
And he wanted that credit, Robertson says, because he hoped that if the deal went ahead Waterhouse or someone else would “look after you”.
“I mean financially,” Robertson clarifies.
Maguire:
Yes.
Updated
We’re played another phone intercept, which we’ve previously heard, in which Maguire tells Berejiklian about a dinner with William Luong.
Luong, remember, was helping Waterhouse find a buyer or investor for her property. He had told Maguire he would receive a commission if a sale occurred.
The point here is that Robertson is trying to press Maguire on why he only referred to him as “William” to Berejiklian. Does that mean he had previously introduced him to the premier.
Maguire’s response:
I can’t ever recall introducing [Berejiklian to] William Luong but I may have introduced him through name recognition at some point ... talking abut William Luong on a number of occasions she may have understood who I meant.
Now Robertson is asking Maguire whether he raised the letter with Berejiklian.
I can’t recall if I did or I didn’t.
So we listen to another intercept from 15 November 2017, this time between Maguire and Berejiklian.
Maguire:
Did you get an email from Louise Waterhouse?
Berejiklian:
No.
Maguire:
You will. She’ll send you an email. She’s really pissed off now so um, about the you know, the, the airport.
Robertson asks Maguire if that refreshes his memory about raising the letter with Bereijklian.
It does, he says.
Robertson asks whether Berejiklian did anything about the issues raised in the email. Did she give it, he asks, “a tickle from the top”.
Maguire:
Not to my knowledge.
Updated
'All that stuff is Icacable', Maguire tells Waterhouse in phone call intercepted by Icac
We hear another intercept from the same day in which Maguire gives Berejiklian’s email address. First, Maguire tells Waterhouse to say he gave her the email address. Then she changes tact: “You probably better off not to dob me in it.”
Maguire:
Well the fact all that stuff is um, Icacable ... and GIPA
Waterhouse:
Freedom of information or whatever.
Maguire:
All this rubbish they go on with.
Robertson asks Maguire whether he was “concerned” that if the “extent” of his involvement in the western Sydney property became public it “might lead to questions being asked” about whether it was appropriate.
Maguire:
I agree.
Updated
We’re hearing another intercept between Maguire and Waterhouse.
First, Maguire tells Waterhouse he’s “done the rounds” with the departments of infrastructure, transport and planning on her behalf.
They’ve both now got it. They’re going to go and put their heads together and deal with this um, ah, I guess the issue with roads not wanting to do anything. So they’re all gonna come back to me, I guess they’ll come back to me within a couple of days.
Then Waterhouse starts talking about seeing Gladys Berejiklian speak.
Maguire interrupts her:
Write her a letter, do this now.
We end the recording, and Robertson asks Maguire whether he gave Waterhouse the premier’s direct email address.
He agrees that yes, he did.
Robertson asks whether he agrees that doing that was a breach of the premier’s “privacy and perhaps security”.
Maguire:
Yes.
Updated
Here’s that story on Berejiklian’s trips to Wagga Wagga, via my colleagues Anne Davies and Naaman Zhou.
'Not to my recollection': Berejiklian denies seeing Maguire on Wagga byelection trips.
Gladys Berejiklian has also told reporters that she did not see Daryl Maguire on any of the eight occasions she visited Wagga Wagga during the 2018 byelection.
Guardian Australia today reported that Berejiklian made multiple taxpayer-funded trips to Maguire’s electorate, across multiple years, associated with government announcements.
She was asked: “In 2018 you went eight times to the Wagga Wagga byelection campaign. Did you see Daryl Maguire on any of those occasions?”
“Not to my recollection,” she answered.
Berejiklian also said she had been “let down” by the Icac itself, after it inadvertently published the entire transcript of a private hearing.
“Suffice to say it has not been pleasant,” she said.
“Unfortunately it didn’t happen once, but twice. I accepted their apologies”.
Finally she was asked: “What is the test for you to resign?”
“When I have done something wrong,” Berejiklian said.
The premier also said she did not believe she would be called up before Icac to give evidence again.
Updated
And we’re back.
Robertson is asking Maguire what he advised Waterhouse to do following their meeting with a staff member for roads minister Melinda Pavey in the foyer of the premier’s office in parliament house on 17 October, 2017.
He says he can’t recall exactly. There was a letter, he seems to remember, and a meeting with the then head of the Greater Sydney Commission. That’s Sarah Hill, who has previously told the commission she was left angry, shocked and uncomfortable after the meeting.
Updated
'Hand on heart, I did nothing wrong': Berejiklian
Gladys Berejiklian has stood by her previous evidence before Icac, and said “hand on heart, I did nothing wrong” in yet another fractious press conference.
The embattled premier has backed her previous testimony before Icac that her relationship with Daryl Maguire started in 2015, and said she will resign only “when I have done something wrong”.
Berejiklian also batted away questions raised by new evidence before Icac this morning, saying she was not aware of it. She was asked by reporters if she actively limited what she knew of Maguire’s business dealings.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
Asked about new evidence raised this morning, the premier said: “I’m not aware of what has happened this morning, but I say this: I have been supportive as a witness to the proceedings and I will continue to do so”.
She is asked: “Do you stand by your testimony that you gave on Monday that the relationship started in 2015?”
“What I will say is whatever I have said openly and transparently is in the evidence.”
She is asked: “The phone taps told you he [Maguire] stands to make $1.5m ... Can you hand on heart say you didn’t know what he was asking about?”
“Hand on heart, I did nothing wrong,” she said.
Updated
We’re back on Maguire’s motivation for helping Waterhouse.
He seems to have gone back and forth on this over the last couple of days. At times he has agreed that he was only involved to the extent he was because he hoped to profit from a sale or rezoning of the land. At other times he has said that he was concerned for the 30 or 40 residents who live near the Waterhouse land being “land locked” by the new airport development.
He suggests the latter again today, and Robertson asks the very obvious question:
As the member for Wagga Wagga, why did you care about that?
Maguire says he regarded it as a “political issue for the area”. The notion that these residents might be worse off as a result of the airport development “weighed heavily on my mind”.
Robertson isn’t happy with that answer. He puts it to Maguire that the issues faced by residents may have been “a factor”, but it was the “profit motive” that was driving his involvement.
Maguire:
Not totally. Ms Waterhouse asked for help she was part of a group of people having trouble ... I would have taken steps, I wouldn’t just have ignored it.
Robertson pushes him further. The extent of his involvement “can’t be explained by a general concern for land owners and pol issues, things like that”. That the potential to profit financially was motivating him.
“Yes,” Maguire concedes.
And with that we take a 15-minute morning tea adjournment.
Updated
Maguire is telling Icac he doesn’t recall meeting with Waterhouse in parliament on 17 October, 2017. So Robertson shows him photographs of Waterhouse signing in to parliament on 17 October 2017.
He now recalls a meeting occurring.
Updated
We’re now hearing a phone intercept between Maguire and the consul for Japan in Sydney.
Maguire’s asking this consul – whose name I’m going to need a minute to check, sorry – to see if he can find an interest from a Japanese company to buy or invest in the Waterhouse land.
“You might like to find one or two of the best potential partners or buyers,” Maguire says.
He tells this businessman:
This friend who has the land is very keen and when I said [that] Japanese expressed an interest after the premier’s visit their eyes lit up they said ‘ah Japanese good to do business with’.
He says there’s concern Chinese investors have “too much influence”.
The infrastructure is around the airport and they have a, I think a preference for some of our closer friends who we know we can rely on. Do you know what I’m telling you? A South Korean company, a Japanese company ... in times of trouble we can depend on them.
After the call Robertson asks Maguire if he had any authorisation from the government to suggest China had “too much influence” over the western Sydney land, or indeed anything to do with Australia’s relationship with China.
He says no.
Updated
Maguire tells the commission that Louise Waterhouse “never” suggested he would receive money from her for helping to find a purchaser or investor for the Smart.West land, but he had hoped.
No, never. No agreement. No suggestion whatsoever. Never ever did we have an agreement a discussion. Never did she even suggest that was an outcome.
Robertson:
But it was still in your mind a hope or desire?
Maguire:
A hope, yes.
Few people apparently having trouble with the Icac feed. I guess you’re just stuck with me.
Looks like there are problems with the #ICAC website!
— Dave Earley (@earleyedition) October 15, 2020
Follow live #ICACNSW updates with @mmcgowan https://t.co/r02tIJI3Tr pic.twitter.com/7I9Cup46eo
Maguire 'limited the information' he gave Berejiklian.
Maguire on what he told Berejiklian:
I limited the information I gave her, yes.
He says he knew giving Berejiklian too much information would put her “in a really difficult position”.
If I went into specifics of issues and all sorts of complexities that might be involved. I didn’t think she needed to know and the conversations I had commissioner were of a broad nature and I regularly refrained from giving too much detail because a lot of it was hypothetical too.
But Robertson isn’t happy with that. He suggests to Maguire that there was at least “some discussion about kinds of steps you were taking to achieve benefits for people like Ms Waterhouse such as letting her know I’ve taken her up to your office and I’m trying to get them to help”.
Maguire says:
I don’t know I would have been that direct.
So we’re played the intercepted phone call in which Maguire tells Berejiklian that he “took [Waterhouse] up to your office and said look can you solve this” before explaining the issues she was having with the roads and planning departments.
Robertson asks Maguire if that refreshes his memory about speaking with Berejiklian in more detail about that issue. It does.
Updated
Maguire agrees Berejiklian 'didn't want to know' about business dealings.
Now we’re played the intercept we heard first heard on Monday.
Maguire tells Berejiklian:
William tells me we’ve done our deal so hopefully that’s about half of all that gone.
Berejiklian’s response is:
That’s good, I don’t need to know about that bit.
William is William Leong, who was helping to find a buyer for the Waterhouse land, and told Maguire he would receive a cut. Robertson wants to know whether he had previously told Berejiklian who Leong was.
He’s telling the commission he can’t recall whether he’d spoken to her about Leong.
Robertson:
What it seems at least to my ears is you’re agreeing with Ms Berejiklian that there’s a particular class of information that you don’t propose to share with her, is that right?
Maguire:
Yes.
Maguire agrees there was a “line at which you wouldn’t fix her” with compromising information.
Robertson:
Were you concerned if you shared a little bit more information ... she might need to take action in exercise of her public functions?
Maguire:
Yes, I would have been concerned that it would cause an issue for her.
Maguire agrees it went the other way, too. That is, he believes there were certain things Berejiklian didn’t want to know.
Robertson:
She didn’t want to know?
Maguire:
Well, yes.
Updated
We’re into the hearing now. Robertson resumes by asking Maguire about the Waterhouse deal.
He reads out a text message from Maguire to Berejiklian from September 2017 discussing his financial situation.
Maguire says in the text: “Also good news we clinched the land deal for my friends ... should be back in black soon.”
Maguire says he can’t recall whether that was a reference to the land deal.
McColl interjects to say the only prospect of getting “back in black” was the Waterhouse deal.
McColl:
Did you have any other potential source of $1.5m?
Maguire:
No commissioner I didn’t.
Maguire says he “can’t be sure” it was a reference to Smart.West “from that brief message.
McColl:
But it’s an available inference.
Maguire:
Yes, it is.
Updated
Leak compromised premier's privacy and security, Icac told
Arthur Moses SC, who is acting for Berejiklian, is speaking. He is very unhappy.
First he tells the commission that the publication of the transcript was a “violation of my client’s privacy and her security” was put at risk by the publication. He’s made proposed orders which would call for Icac to investigate who downloaded the transcript.
McColl tells him she’s advised that isn’t possible.
Then, Moses takes issue with some of counsel assisting Stuart Robertson’s questioning of Maguire on what Berejiklian knew or didn’t know yesterday.
He offers “a word of caution” to Robertson that questions should not be put without basis. Essentially, he’s saying some of Robertson’s questioning was based on a preposition he did not spell out.
“If my friend has a basis for it he should disclose it,” he said.
McColl does not seem impressed, and tells him if he has objections he should make them as they occur.
Updated
Transcript subject to internal Icac investigation.
Ruth McColl SC, the commissioner, has begun with an apology to Gladys Berejiklian and Daryl Maguire for the “inadvertent” uploading of the unredacted transcript from yesterday’s private hearing.
She notes they are subject to a strict non publication order.
She says the chief commissioner has instructed there should be an “internal investigation” into how the transcript was uploaded, and has referred it to the Office of the Inspector of the ICAC, Sydney barrister Bruce McClintock, SC.
Maguire is back in the witness stand. Here we go.
We’re due to start in about five minutes. If you still need to get up to speed, here’s my wrap of yesterday’s hearing:
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, will hold a press conference today at 11am. It’s putatively an update on the state’s Covid-19 case numbers, but I’m pretty confident that she will face some other questions too. Just like on Wednesday, we’ll have both Maguire and Berejiklian speaking at the same time.
While we wait for the hearing to begin, here’s our main story from this morning.
Documents released by Icac show NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian dined at Daryl Maguire’s Wagga Wagga home with a business associate linked to the cash-for-visa scheme now at the centre of the corruption inquiry.
Good morning. Welcome to what shapes to be the final day of Daryl Maguire’s evidence to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, as part of its investigation into whether the former Wagga Wagga MP misused his position for his own financial benefit.
We’re sort of running out of journalist superlatives about the inquiry at this point, right? It’s been jaw-dropping, explosive, shocking, spectacular, you name it. On Wednesday Maguire made a series of damaging admissions, including that he had sought to “monetise” his political office.
Then, yesterday, Maguire told the inquiry he’d sought “guidance” from the premier Gladys Berejiklian, who he had been in a secret “on again off again” relationship since about 2015, over the $1.5m personal debt he’d been seeking to pay off, and spoke to her in “general” terms about some of his business deals. He said he couldn’t recall to what extent, though.
If that isn’t enough, the Icac went into a private hearing yesterday to discuss what the counsel assisting the commission Scott Robertson called information which “trespasses on matters of considerable personal privacy”. The extended private hearing led to an early adjournment on Thursday, before, incredibly, Icac accidentally published an unredacted transcript of the private testimony. At the same time, Icac also published about 2,000 pages of evidence from previously unheard interviews. The transcripts show that, among other things, Berejiklian dined at Maguire’s Wagga Wagga home with a business associate he partnered with to run a cash-for-visa scheme.
All this by way of saying a lot has happened, and there is still a lot to come.
Updated
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