Legal experts have warned that Gladys Berejiklian is likely to have breached the state’s ministerial code of conduct by failing to disclose her secret relationship with the disgraced former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire.
In the witness box of the Independent Commission Against Corruption last week, the New South Wales premier defined her involvement with Maguire as a “close personal relationship” but said it had not been of “sufficient status” to disclose.
But on Sunday, Berejiklian said in an interview with Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph she had been in love with Maguire and thought they “could” eventually marry.
Labor says the disclosure, made in a soft-ball interview with the celebrity and gossip columnist Annette Sharp, contradicts the careful wording the premier has previously used to describe the relationship she maintained with Maguire since at least 2015.
The distinction is vital because under the NSW ministerial code of conduct the definition of a family member includes “any person with whom the minister is in an intimate personal relationship”.
The code falls under the purview of the Icac Act, which states that a minister, including the premier, must disclose potential conflict matters that involve a “family member”.
A breach of the act would leave it open to the commission to make an adverse finding against the premier.
The former head of the NSW Department of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, told Guardian Australia that because the word “intimate” is not further defined in the Icac Act, the words “carry their ordinary English meaning”.
“What is an ‘intimate’ personal relationship? I don’t think it requires sexual connection,” he said.
“The ordinary meaning is: closely acquainted, familiar, private, personal. The premier has used the expression ‘close personal relationship’ and has reportedly said she was in love with Maguire and had an idea of marriage to him.
“They spent a lot of time together. We know they discussed some of Maguire’s business dealings. The relationship was kept secret from the world for five years or more.
“I think that amounts to an intimate personal relationship. That brings Maguire under the definition of ‘family member’ in the regulation. That means that if a potential conflict of interest had arisen, the premier should have disclosed it. He seems to have disclosed to her a conflict of interest between his public duty and private interests in the business dealings.”
Geoffrey Watson SC, a former counsel assisting the commission, told Guardian Australia it was clear the premier “had to do something” about her relationship with Maguire.
“It does seem to me as though a question arises in setting an anti-corruption culture that it is set at the top,” he said.
“If you set it at any level lower than no tolerance, you’ve failed. To my mind there’s no relationship exception to that, she had to do something about it. What she had to do about it, legal minds may differ, but she had to do something.”
Stewart Jackson, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Sydney, told Guardian Australia it appeared Berejiklian was “splitting hairs” in her definition of the relationship.
“What does intimate mean under the act? Does it have to be some form of betrothal and future plans for an engagement? This is the problem with trying to define it. At what point do you cross the line? At some point it’s splitting hairs and you could argue the premier has breached the ministerial code of conduct,” he said.
“My next question would be, ‘What are the sanctions?’ The Icac could make an adverse finding, but I think the real question is the politics, and what the party room decide to do.”
Berejiklian told reporters last week after giving evidence at the commission she had “at all times” kept her private and public interests apart.
“At all times I’ve acted in the best interests of this state. Had I known any wrongdoing was done at any stage I would have not have hesitated to act and I have acted very swiftly when I needed to, and I am the first to put up my hand and admit, but I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said.
“At all times I have maintained a distinction between my personal and private life and the public office I hold.”
The Labor leader, Jodi McKay, stepped up her attack on the premier on Monday, saying it had been incumbent on the premier to disclose the relationship.
“What we saw over the weekend was an admission from the premier that she was in a relationship that should have been disclosed under the ministerial code of conduct,” McKay told reporters on Monday.
“There is no grey here. The premier can play with words as much as she likes, she should have disclosed that relationship.”
On Monday, the premier again insisted she had not needed to disclose her ties to Maguire, telling Sydney radio station 2GB that “it wasn’t a normal relationship” and insisting that she had never suspected Maguire was acting improperly.
“It did not cross my mind that there was anything untoward,” she said.
“He wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t anything of note. I certainly hoped it would be [but] because I’m not the sort of person who’d been in a long-term relationship, I didn’t want to introduce him to my social circle.”
But McKay accused Berejiklian of using “weasel words”.
“Whatever the case was, she was having discussions with someone that she was in a relationship with about Badgerys Creek [and] a $1.5m [land] deal that would clear [Daryl Maguire’s] debts and allow them to be in a relationship.
“Yet at the same time she’s in discussions with her ministers about Badgerys Creek, a strategic site for the government. The conflict of interest just shouts out here.”
The commission heard last week that Maguire, who had admitted to seeking to “monetise” his parliamentary office and “use his status” as an MP for financial gain, had raised his outside business dealings with Berejiklian on a number of occasions.
Maguire told Icac he had sought to “limit the information” he gave the premier but had sought “guidance” from her over the $1.5m personal debt he was seeking to pay off.
