It’s a measure of quite a few things — the state of New South Wales’ politics, 2020’s relentlessly crowded news schedule and, perhaps most of all, what we will now put up with — that Crikey‘s Clown of the Week Gladys Berejiklian seems to be at no greater risk of resigning now than she was two months ago.
A quick recap. Back in mid-October Berejiklian — for so long the only NSW premier untainted by scandal — revealed at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) that she had for years been in a “close personal relationship” with disgraced former MP Daryl Maguire. She risked it all for a bloke called Daryl, whose alleged corruption appeared to be redeemed only by his apparent incompetence.
Her default stance in the scrutiny that followed has been long stretches of insouciance punctuated with bouts of public self-pity. The relationship had “insufficient status” to tell anyone about, she told ICAC, and a week later she was telling The Daily Telegraph‘s gossip columnist of her bitter tears and lost hope from the break up with the man called Daryl she had planned to marry.
Then, she punched a hole in what we thought was the bottom of the barrel — and waiting beneath was, as ever, Kyle Sandilands.
You would think, in this atmosphere, Berejiklian might tread lightly in other areas. Yet she has since unapologetically failed to isolate after a COVID-19 test and, after it was revealed that hundreds of millions had been siphoned from an abandoned council merger program into Coalition seats, had gone all Nixon about whether or not pork-barrelling is illegal.
And then there was the $5.5 million grant awarded in 2017 to the Australian Clay Target Association’s clubhouse and convention centre. This is a business which happens to be in Wagga Wagga, Maguire’s then-electorate, and one he would later try to profit from.
It’s not all bad: the Tele has been continuously helpful. First, it gave a platform to Berejiklian’s Mills and Boon-ification of her time with Maguire, helpfully skimming over the bit where their texts were less romantic and more Berejiklian congratulating Maguire for all the money he was getting from property developers.
And now, their regular hyperventilation on potential reform on laws around illicit drugs both allows Berejiklian to fall into line and restate her lack of support for decriminalisation, and relegates her latest pity party over Maguire to page 20:
As Bernard Keane noted this week, the dizzying plunge from respected and competent premier to arrogant scandal magnet has been painful to watch.
“If Shredderjiklian was a bloke would she have gotten away with this?”?
The same question was directed to Theresa May.
An entirely valid question klewso. Again, the answer must be no, if he were a Labor politician, but probably yes if a coalition pollie. The MSM is hopelessly biased.
Once she began echoing Morrison in sledging the Queensland Premier she lost me. Then on top of that the questionable relationship with McGuire, the handing out of public funds to 95% of Coalition electorates to boost election outcomes, to say it is not illegal and then to shred said documents – Gladys is unethical and does not govern for the good of the people in the State. The Coalition looks more like a party of crooks and scammers and this is the leader of it in NSW
The wonder of that sledging was that she could do it from under that bus that Scotty and Spud threw her, when they barred Dutton’s Black-shirts from appearing before the Ruby Princess RC, thus saving themselves and their political masters from implicating their part in that “free-flow” fiasco.
It seems that the hypocrisy was evident when a concert was closed down over a noxious substance “topping” yet it was mooted that an oz of wacky backy, 100 IU of “ice” and sufficient coke for two snorts after dinner at (eg) Sails or similar is nothing between friends.
I’m at a loss to see how ICAC can come back with any finding other than ‘corrupt conduct’ on her part. Sure, she was on the periphery, but it still seems impossible to find otherwise.
Personally, I find the entirely legal things they do, buying mates $3M land for $30M, spraying tax payer money all over coalition seats etc, hopelessly beyond redemption.
Is that right about the clay shooting place being a local company? What the hell are govt grants doing going to local companies. Where is the ‘public good’ in that?