To a packed press conference on Friday October 1 2021, at the height of her powers and still steering her state through the COVID crisis, then-NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian dropped a bombshell: she was resigning as premier.
My resignation as premier could not occur at a worse time but the timing is completely outside of my control, as the ICAC has chosen to take this action during the most challenging weeks of the most challenging times in the state’s history.
She went on:
I state categorically: I have always acted with the highest level of integrity. History will demonstrate that I have always executed my duties, again, with the highest level of integrity for the benefit of the people of NSW who I have had the privilege to serve.
Flash-forward more than 18 months after a protracted Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) process, and yesterday the former premier, now managing director of enterprise, business and institutional at Optus, released a much shorter statement:
Serving the people of NSW was an honour and privilege. At all times I have worked my hardest in the public interest. Nothing in this report demonstrates otherwise … Thank you to members of the public for their incredible support. This will sustain me always. The report is currently being examined by my legal team.
Which raises the question: is Berejiklian reading the same report we are?
To recap from the ICAC report:
The commission finds that 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 Australian Clay Target Association in Wagga Wagga], without disclosing her close personal relationship with [ex-state Wagga Wagga MP Daryl] 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. The commission also finds that in the same period, Ms Berejiklian partially exercised her official functions, in connection with funding promised to ACTA, influenced by the existence of her close personal relationship with Mr Maguire.
So how is the public meant to square the dissonance between Berejiklian’s statement and the actual report?
Crikey put that question to the NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, who served as attorney-general under Berejiklian and who belongs to the same moderate Liberal faction.
“Well, everything I saw as minister, from Gladys, displayed the highest integrity,” Speakman said. “She worked 24/7, everything I saw, she behaved honestly, diligently. And basically her personal life, such that I knew about it, always came a distant second to her public life and public duty. She was a premier, when I saw her act, who put the public interest first.
“On the other hand, there are now these findings by ICAC of serious corrupt conduct. They are significant findings, and they may well be the subject of factual or legal challenge by her legal team.”
Speakman is basing his assertions on “everything he saw”. The problem, obviously, was that Berejiklian and Maguire operated in secret. Berejiklian, notoriously private, had told very few people about her relationship with Maguire, and that fact was at the heart of one of the scathing findings from ICAC.
The ICAC deemed Berejiklian’s conduct seriously corrupt precisely because she “[exercised] her official functions” in relation to funding pet projects of Maguire’s “without disclosing her close personal relationship” with him. She was also reprimanded for “refusing” to do her duty under an anti-corruption law to notify ICAC of any suspicions about Maguire’s behaviour.
(Again, to recap, Maguire, whose relationship with Berejiklian continued until September 2020, resigned from state Parliament in disgrace in 2018, and was already facing court over charges related to his time in office when he was accused of a long list of corrupt conduct in Thursday’s report).
None of this seems to have shifted Berejiklian’s rosy view of her conduct since she made that defiant resignation speech in October 2021. She consistently denied any wrongdoing during the ICAC’s public hearings, both on the stand and in statements to reporters. The report is public, and readers can judge for themselves.
NSW voters weren’t allowed to know the findings before heading to the polls in March — one of many reasons the severe delay in delivering the report has been so criticised — but the attitudes of Berejiklian, Speakman, former treasurer Matt Kean, and other Liberals may well play on the public’s mind next time there’s an opportunity to vote.
Labor Premier Chris Minns and his reaction to the report will also be under a microscope. He gave a noticeably muted response to the report on Thursday, criticising the delay in delivering it while highlighting it did not “take away from premier Berejiklian’s handling of the COVID emergency, which I still consider excellent”.
“It’s important however for all politicians in NSW, and anyone in public life or in positions of leadership, to understand that we must manage conflicts of interest, and in particular declare them,” Minns said.
It’s now up to Minns to implement the ICAC’s list of 18 recommendations from Thursday’s report.
So where does this leave the public, in regards to understanding the gap between Berejiklian’s view of her conduct and the conclusions reached by the ICAC? Former ICAC insider and prominent integrity advocate Geoffrey Watson SC told Crikey: “I don’t think you can reconcile them. But I would have a look at the independent authority, rather than the person making the assertion.
“She may well have held that genuine belief, but it wasn’t correct.”
“So how is the public meant to square the dissonance between Berejiklian’s statement and the actual report?”……………
IT ISN’T.
That’s the whole thrust of the Trumpian philosophy…………….
………just keep telling lies and muddying the waters.
As soon as you own up, the whole edifice comes crashing down.
Those who might remember St. Gladys’ response at the next election should remember one fact………………….
……………nobody in their right mind quits as NSW Premier and voluntarily gives up the levers of power unless they KNOW they are toast.
Yes. If she knew ICAC would take her down, then she knew why, which meant she had known why all along.
The unfunny/funny thing is everyone knows these things go on and have done for a very long time. But we just accept the joke is on us. Psychologically there are no mechanisms in place to moderate the increased sense of power that skews the senses toward risky behaviour when laws are inept or absent to curb bad choices.
It’s funny how most of society are encouraged to see a mental health person but the biggest power brokers are exempt from doing the same. I think all Government employees should see an independent clinical psychologist/psychiatrist once a year at least.
I think as proffessionals they should be obliged to report any concerns, unlike churches. Drs should also be obliged to do the same for the security of integrity toward Australia as a whole.
Sorry, the sovereignty of a Government employee should not be the utmost importance. They are public representatives. Their private choices belong in the public domain no matter how much they would like to separate the rwo.
I don’t think there’d be many who’d pass….
The issue is that politics attracts the kind of person who genuinely believes they have the answers often without any underlying skill set or experience.
That is some ego.
Poor little virginal never-been-kissed ethnic girl Gladys, giddily in love (in her 40s) for probably the first time. But taken advantage of by a clueless boasting grifter from the bush. The only surprise is it wasn’t a National Party MP!
Spare me the Mills and Boon sympathy.
I doubt even her Mum would pretend that she is a glamour……………..
………..so when any man started sniffing around, even one as aesthetically-challenged as Maguire, her first response should have been to ask why.
Cause it sure ain’t the packaging.
Agree. Gladys is a crook.
One of the most disturbing aspects of this whole saga is Gladys’s galling defiance. During the ICAC proceedings she appeared defiant using the platform to unashamedly politic. And now this brazen obstinance, aided and abetted by her party. I don’t buy it. Keep up the excellent work ICAC (I don’t care how long it takes).
The state and federal Liberal Party’s are in complete denial. Excusing corruption is as bad as committing it. Surely they aren’t condoning Gladys’ behaviour by giving her their unbridled support?
The Liberal Party (and, to be fair, the ALP also – you’ll notice that they have been keeping their heads down apart from a few obligatory “tut-tut” platitudes) don’t want to accept that pork-barrelling is corrupt. Their excuse is that the Minister in question is not getting money for it, therefore they aren’t illegally gaining from it and it’s all fine.
Of course as we all know money is only one form of currency in politics. What the pork-barrellers are getting from wasting our taxes is influence. Influence leads to better jobs, extended time at the top, and potentially a lucrative post-politics appointment. And of course (again) there’s no chance that a significant number of politicians (in parties capable of controlling the funds used for pork-barrelling) is going to change any laws to recognise this.
‘I’m not corrupt, I only drove the gravy train.’