Corruption isn’t OK even if you have a soft spot for the perpetrator
At several points during the past couple of days I’ve felt like I have been living in a parallel universe as politicians attempt to downplay and downgrade the corruption findings made against former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian.
As has been repeatedly noted, Berejiklian was an extraordinarily popular premier who guided NSW through fire, flood and pandemic. She did an impressive job at a time when the state craved strong leadership. Given the genuine affection many – including a lot of Herald readers – have for Berejiklian, it would be easy to avoid writing about this topic in my weekly note to you.
The ICAC found that Gladys Berejiklian acted improperly for the benefit of maintaining her close personal relationship with former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire.
But the proposition being advanced by some that competency in one aspect of her public life nullifies wrongdoing in another needs to be confronted. It is, at best, a naive view and at worst a deliberately misleading argument which risks allowing corruption to flourish in NSW.
I spent Thursday night reading the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s full 700-page report into the conduct of the former NSW premier and her secret boyfriend, the former MP for Wagga Wagga Daryl Maguire. The report was based on two public inquiries conducted over 30 days, with 8630 pages of transcripts, 708 exhibits and 957 pages of submissions.
There is near-universal agreement that temporary commissioner Ruth McColl took too long to deliver the report. But the final document is an important and detailed piece of work that needs to be taken seriously by our political leaders.
So far, though, they don’t seem particularly interested in examining the findings. Most have spent the past day and a half walking on eggshells, conscious of Berejiklian’s enduring popularity.
Liberal MPs Natalie Ward and Tim James, Berejiklian’s successor in the seat of Willoughby, tweeted fawning tributes about the former premier on Thursday without once mentioning the ICAC verdict. To state the obvious, the ICAC investigation was never about deciding whether Berejiklian was a nice person who did some good things for NSW.
Premier Chris Minns responded to the report on Thursday by emphasising two points: that it has taken “way too long” to materialise and that “nothing” takes away from Berejiklian’s handling of the COVID-19 emergency. On the day the state’s corruption watchdog finds the former premier engaged in serious corrupt conduct, were these two issues really the most pressing topics to discuss?
Today, Minns said the findings against Maguire were “serious and grave” but repeatedly declined to endorse the ICAC’s conclusion Berejiklian engaged in serious corruption. Asked by reporters whether he accepted the agency’s finding about the former Liberal leader, the Labor premier said: “I’m not prepared to make that claim.” Asked whether he thought Berejiklian should offer an apology he said: “No”.
Perhaps the most alarming contribution came from the shadow attorney-general Alister Henskens, who on Thursday said integrity in government was important but “when most people think of corruption, they think of bribery akin to the personal financial benefits, the kind of financial benefits that Eddie Obeid and others that have found to be seriously corrupt received.
“That’s not the case here with regard to Gladys Berejiklian,” he said. He was incredulous that ICAC could find Berejiklian seriously corrupt but not recommend prosecution.
As legal affairs reporter Michaela Whitbourn wrote yesterday, a finding of corrupt conduct, as defined in the ICAC Act, does not require a criminal offence to have taken place or be capable of being proven in court – although sometimes it will dovetail with criminal behaviour. If politicians really believe the corruption watchdog should only be allowed to make findings that meet the very high standard of criminality, the ICAC would be little more than a second police force investigating suspected crimes.
While Henskens is right that Berejiklian never received a financial benefit, the ICAC did find that she acted improperly “for her private benefit – namely, the benefit in maintaining or advancing her close personal relationship with Maguire”. Berejiklian’s failure to report suspicions about Maguire’s involvement in Badgerys Creek land deals also helped keep alive the prospect of him gaining what he hoped could total $1.5 million in potential commissions.
In the end, ICAC found Berejiklian engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” over the awarding of funding for two projects in Maguire’s electorate: a clay target shooting centre and a conservatorium of music, and for ignoring her legal obligation to notify ICAC of her suspicion that Maguire may have been involved in corrupt conduct over land deals near the new Western Sydney Airport.
The report is filled with damning conclusions about Berejiklian’s conduct in keeping the relationship secret and therefore not disclosing a potential conflict of interest. When news of the affair between premier and former backbencher broke in October 2020, one of the great mysteries that even Berejiklian’s supporters struggled to reconcile was why she continued the relationship with Maguire long after he resigned in disgrace from parliament in 2018. As chief investigative reporter Kate McClymont wrote this week, the relationship continued in secret for another two years, ending only on September 13, 2020, shortly after the ICAC announced it would be holding public hearings into more of Maguire’s business activities.
Most will not have read it, but ICAC’s report concludes Berejiklian had suspicions about Maguire’s conduct when he resigned from parliament but didn’t report them to the watchdog. As for why she continued the relationship, ICAC concluded the following: “To reveal that she had been in a relationship for four or more years with someone publicly suspected of corrupt conduct, and whom she had come to suspect of corrupt conduct, would be an anathema to her, and most probably be the death of her political career. The less anyone, not least the commission, knew about the relationship, the better from Berejiklian’s point of view in terms of avoiding the cloud which had engulfed him doing the same to her.”
The commission found Berejiklian’s justification for her failure to report Maguire was “evasive”, “obfuscatory”, “inconsistent”, “strained credulity” and sometimes “bordered on the irrational”. It also said her decision to only end the relationship with Maguire just before it would become public at hearings in October 2020 “bespeaks a last-minute attempt on her part at damage control”.
The report is full of similar damning findings on a whole series of matters relating to Berejiklian’s conduct, her performance at the ICAC hearings, and her subsequent public attempts to excuse her behaviour. Yet politicians continue to argue she has been unfairly treated, merely the victim of a dud boyfriend, or deserves some sort of special dispensation because she was a competent transport minister, treasurer and premier.
I am deeply uncomfortable with the attempts by some to use Berejiklian’s popularity to play down the seriousness of this situation, and sow seeds of doubt about the definition and impact of corruption.
The coming days and weeks will be a moment in which we must decide whether all corruption is insidious, or whether wrongdoing is acceptable on the proviso we have a soft spot for the perpetrator. I hope we land on the right side of that argument.
Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.