Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian acted corruptly while in a five-year relationship with a disgraced Liberal MP, the NSW corruption watchdog has found.
The findings of a long-awaited NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation into the conduct of ex-MP for Wagga Wagga Daryl Maguire and Ms Berejiklian, dubbed Operation Keppel, were released on Thursday.
ICAC found Ms Berejiklian “engaged in serious corrupt conduct by breaching public trust in 2016 and 2017 through exercising her official functions in relation to funding promised and/or awarded” to the Wagga Wagga-based Australian Clay Target Association.
“(She did so) without disclosing her close personal relationship with Mr Maguire, when she was in a position of a conflict of interest between her public duty and her private interest, which could objectively have the potential to influence the performance of her public duty,” ICAC found.
Ms Berejiklian, 52, again engaged in serious corrupt conduct in relation to the Riverina Conservatorium of Music, another project advanced by Maguire, ICAC said.
She had taken part in a 2018 cabinet committee about the conservatorium and later determined to make a funding reservation of $20 million, without disclosing her “close personal relationship” with Maguire.
However, ICAC will not refer her to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
But Maguire has been referred for possible misconduct in public office charges, after numerous findings that he also engaged in serious misconduct between 2012 and 2018 and improperly used his office as an MP.
“He 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,” ICAC said.
“Other misuse of his office as an MP included attempting to advance his own private financial interests and/or those of people associated with him in connection with the sale and/or development of land in NSW.”
The report made 18 recommendations including amending the code of conduct for MPs on the limited circumstances in which it is acceptable to intermingle parliamentary duties with personal or private activities.
ICAC had been investigating whether Ms Berejiklian breached the public trust by failing to disclose her long-time personal relationship with Maguire when she was treasurer and later premier.
At issue was whether she had exercised her public functions when there was a perceived conflict of interest in her private life because the relationship was kept secret, and whether she turned a blind eye to allegedly corrupt conduct by Maguire.
While the inquiry began as a probe into possible corrupt conduct by Maguire it was expanded to the coalition premier after she was compelled to reveal the relationship in public hearings in 2020.
She denied any wrongdoing saying the romance had ended and she retained her office, only to step down as premier in October 2021 when ICAC began investigating her.
After quitting office, she turned down an opportunity to run for federal parliament and moved into the private sector as an Optus executive.
Maguire, 64, is already facing criminal charges stemming from conduct exposed at an earlier ICAC inquiry, including for giving false and misleading evidence into that inquiry.
