Weâve all had a lapse of judgment in our personal lives, and former Labor leader Bill Shorten has empathised with Gladys Berejiklianâs freshly exposed relationship with disgraced former MP Daryl Maguire.
During a Tuesday interview on the âTodayâ show, Shorten said of the NSW premier: âSheâs a smart lady who I think has been punching below her weight with perhaps a much more average guy. I have sympathy for Gladys at the human level.â
âBill, you have summed it up perfectly. Everyone in Australia wanted to say it,â responded âTodayâ host Karl Stefanovic.
Many online shared Shortenâs stance on Berejiklianâs dud boyfriend excuse, but critics have questioned whether a politician can really be ignorant of someoneâs misconduct when theyâre in a close personal relationship with them.
On Monday Berejiklian told a corruption inquiry that she had had a secret âclose personal relationshipâ with Maguire, the former Member for Wagga Wagga, whoâs under investigation for monetising his position through business dealings with China.
She revealed the relationship to the NSW Independent Commission into Corruption (ICAC), prompting calls from Labor for her resignation.
NSW opposition leader Jodi McKay said it was time to âforgetâ Berejiklianâs personal relationship with Maguire.
âIntegrity doesnât matter to this Premier and she expects simply by saying, âI stuffed up and I was in a bad relationshipâ that people wonât look at what she was doing,â she told ABCâs News Breakfast on Tuesday.
âWell, we will look at it and going to pursue it because she should not be Premier of New South Wales. Many people have been in bad relationships, but you donât use that as an excuse for not doing the right thing. She hasnât done the right thing. She has been complicit in the corruption.â
Addressing media after the hearing, Berejiklian said she had âmade a mistake in my personal lifeâ with a relationship she did not even disclose to her family or closest friends, but would continue to serve as premier because she had ânot done anything wrongâ.
âPeople may have tried to influence me... but they failed,â she said.
Berejiklian had earlier told the ICAC she was âbeyond shocked, disgustedâ by evidence put before the inquiry that the former MP for the town of Wagga Wagga, Maguire, was allegedly involved in a âcash for visas schemeâ for Chinese nationals involving falsified employment.
Maguire was forced to resign from the NSW Parliament, and his position as chairman of the NSW Parliament Asia Pacific Friendship Group, after a 2018 investigation heard he had sought to act for Chinese property developers in land deals.
Berejiklian said she had been in a relationship with Maguire since 2015, and had once called him her ânumero unoâ, but demanded Maguireâs resignation after the 2018 ICAC revelations.
She said she ceased contact with him in September 2020 after being privately interviewed by corruption investigators.
A new ICAC inquiry is investigating Maguireâs pursuit of business deals between 2012 and 2018 which commonly involved an âassociation with Chinaâ.
ICAC telephone intercepts played to the inquiry showed Maguire discussed his financial problems, including debts of $1.5 million, with Berejiklian, as well as the potential for him to gain financially from an airport land deal.
Maguire wanted to resolve his debts before resigning from politics at the 2019 election, the inquiry heard.
If Maguire left politics, Berejiklian would have been willing to make their relationship public, she recalled.
She told the inquiry she was âan independent woman with my own financesâ, adding she would ânever turn a blind eyeâ to inappropriate behaviour.
âI am very clear of my public responsibilities and the distinction between my private life and public responsibilities.â
The inquiry was played a September 2017 telephone intercept where Maguire talks about concluding a land deal, and Berejiklian responds, âI donât need to know about that bitâ.
Berejiklian said Maguire was âa big talkerâ and she would often dismiss his talk of deals as fanciful.
Maguire boasted in one telephone intercept that he had met Chinese President Xi Jinping, an encounter which Berejiklian explained to the inquiry was among a group of 15 NSW politicians who lined up to greet Xi on his visit to Sydney in 2014.
In 2017, Maguire wrote to the board of Chinaâs biggest food producers, Bright Foods, to complain a delay in a deal with an Australian agribusiness UWE was âcausing loss of face for my political leadersâ.
Berejiklian said she had no knowledge of the letter and it was âhighly inappropriateâ.
Maguire had sought to join a NSW government trade delegation to China in 2017 to lobby for the project, but had been rebuffed by Berejiklianâs office, and told the delay would be raised in meetings.
With additional reporting by Reuters.
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