The Australian political landscape is currently living through their own, very boring, iteration of Scandal. ICYMI NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is embroiled in a milquetoast romance with disgraced former Member for Wagga Wagga Daryl Maguire.
During an Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry yesterday, Gladys Berejiklian revealed that she had a “close personal relationship” with the former MP from 2015 up until a few months ago.
Maguire was forced to resign in 2018 after a different ICAC inquiry that unveiled phone recordings of him seeking to broker a deal with a Chinese property developer. Maguire admitted to seeking payment and resigned.
Ms Berejiklian ascertains that she cut all contact with Mr Maguire after she was asked to be involved in the latest inquiry.
“When I was asked to support this inquiry it became apparent to me that I should have absolutely no contact anymore and I ceased all contact,” Berejiklian said during the hearing. “I want to state at the outset that, had I known then what I know now, clearly I would not have made those personal decisions that I did.
“I trusted someone that I’d known for a long time, and I feel really, really let down. I trusted him for a long time.
“We were colleagues for 15 years, and I’m not going to take away from the fact that I made a mistake in my personal life, but I have to say that there is huge separation between a personal life and public office.”
Throughout the hearing, Ms Berejiklian emphasised that the relationship between herself and Maguire was kept private from Members of Parliament. Ms Berejiklian claims that she kept it secret to avoid awkward social dynamics for both parties and in the interest of her own privacy.
“More substantially, I’m a very private person and I didn’t feel the relationship had sufficient substance for it to be made public,” she said.
After the Monday hearing, Ms Berejiklian took part in a press conference that saw her admit: “I stuffed up in my personal life”, but had no intention of resigning from her position because she had done nothing wrong.
Despite sacking Mr Maguire from the Liberal party, Ms Berejiklian did not end the relationship because Mr Maguire was “in a very dark place”.
“I didn’t feel that I could stop being his friend during that time, rightly or wrongly, on compassionate grounds.”
Gladys Berejiklian stressed that she did not allow the personal relationships in her life to impact her professional responsibilities as a member of Parliament.
“Can I say, I would never, ever, never, ever turned a blind eye from any responsibility I had to disclose any wrongdoing that I saw, or any activity that I thought was not in keeping with what a member of Parliament should be doing and I want to make that very clear,” she shared.
This whole thing feels so completely beserk to me because it’s so insanely dull. I think that the whole hoo-ha surrounding the secret relationship between two consenting adults working in the same field is probably the result of the covid boredom pressure valve hitting its limit.
I am in no way a devoted worshipper at the chapel of Gladys but I don’t think she deserves to cop any scrutiny for this relationship. What does it say about a society that expects people to sacrifice their personal relationships for the sake of their own career ambitions? If her knocking off some ex-politician has no impact on the way she runs a state then let her do whatever she wants.
The real question here is how has she managed to maintain a five-year relationship whilst living with her parents.
