Gladys Berejiklian looked like she had been crying all night as she stood to announce her resignation as New South Wales’s second-longest serving Liberal premier.
But when she delivered the news that she was resigning from her beloved job because of an impending investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, it was with her trademark toughness and pugnaciousness.
The diminutive Berejiklian was always a politician on the front foot: businesslike, confident, someone who relished a good political stoush. She seemed almost religious in her devotion to her job and public service.
No one asked about her personal life because she didn’t seem to have one. The only people outside politics she ever mentioned were her parents and her two sisters.
But in 2020 came the bombshell. As Operation Keppel, an Icac inquiry into the former state MP for Wagga Wagga Daryl Maguire got under way, the premier was unexpectedly called to give evidence.
It had ended only a few months before the inquiry started, even though Maguire had been forced to resign in 2018, when the Icac probe first began.
Maguire was under investigation by Icac for misusing his position as an MP, including allegations of running an immigration scheme out of his Macquarie Street office, which involved concocting false positions in rural enterprises, and taking commissions on various land deals, including for a large Chinese developer, Country Garden.
On the tapes, Maguire could be heard talking to Berejiklian about his money woes and alluding to payments he was soon to get from various deals.
Personal texts were laid bare.
“Hawkiss, good news. One of my contacts sold a motel for 5.8m I had put her in contact so I should make 5K,” Maguire texted, using an Armenian word for “my beloved”.
“Congrats!!! great news!!! woohoo,” Berejiklian texted back.
Berejiklian has repeatedly denied in parliament and in Icac that she was aware of Maguire’s alleged wrongdoing. But it raised questions about her judgment and as the opposition put it, whether she had turned a blind eye.
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For a while her leadership looked tenuous but her tenacity during Covid meant any doubts by her colleagues and the public were pushed aside.
Icac is yet to make any findings on Maguire. There have also been no findings against Berejiklian. But there was no closure either.
The secrecy surrounding Berejiklian’s relationship with Maguire raised new questions – and it seems, new avenues for Icac to investigate.
Colleagues, including Berejiklian’s praetorian guard – the moderate powerbrokers who were closest to her – were genuinely shocked by the revelations of the relationship with Maguire. He was not popular with colleagues who saw him as a big-noter and a lacklustre politician.
The issue for Berejiklian is that she made no declarations that Maguire was her partner in her pecuniary interest register, nor it seems when she had presided as chair of the expenditure review committee (ERC) while treasurer, or in cabinet as premier.
Over recent months, the Greens and Labor have zeroed in on grants made to the seat of Wagga Wagga while Maguire was member.
In 2017 ERC approved a grant of $5.5m for the Australian Clay Target Association’s clubhouse and convention centre in Wagga Wagga, which Maguire had championed.
Then there is the $30m awarded for the construction of the Riverina Conservatorium of Music in Wagga – more than the amount given to all other conservatoriums in regional NSW combined.
Details of the Clay Target Association grant were first revealed by the ABC in December. Documents revealed the convention centre project was initially not supported by Treasury, but was eventually green lit two years later.
Emails have emerged that suggest the premier or her office took a particular interest in the project and that public servants were aware of that interest.
The $30m conservatorium grant also raised questions about the approval process, particularly as Maguire announced the second tranche of funding six months before it was officially announced. .
Berejiklian has denied any impropriety in the handling of the grants.
Asked whether her apparent involvement in the process amounted to a conflict of interest, given her relationship with Maguire, Berejiklian told reporters on 9 August: “The proposition you are putting is absolutely ridiculous and all proper processes were followed.”
If Berejiklian is worried about the hearing into whether her conduct constituted a breach of public trust or amounted to dishonesty or a partial exercise of her responsibilities, it didn’t show on Friday.
“Resigning at this time is against every instinct in my being and something which I do not want to do. I love my job, and serving the community, but I have been given no option following the [Icac] statement issued,” she said.
“My only regret will be not to be able to finish the job to ensure the people of New South Wales transition to living freely with Covid,” she added.
“I have absolutely no regrets during my time in public life. At times we all stumble, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start again stronger and wiser than before. I have done this many times, as we all have.”
