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Watch live: ICAC’s public hearing
Paul Doorn, a former executive director at the NSW Office of Sport, is giving evidence to the ICAC today about a multimillion-dollar state government grant in 2016/2017 to the Australian Clay Target Association in former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire’s electorate of Wagga Wagga.
You can watch the inquiry live here.
The Office of Sport is an agency related to the Department of Communities and Justice. Mr Doorn’s former colleague, Office of Sport director Michael Toohey, gave evidence at the inquiry yesterday. Mr Toohey reported to him. Both men are witnesses and are not accused of any wrongdoing.
NSW agency asked to prepare urgent funding submission for Wagga Wagga project
The ICAC hears that the NSW Office of Sport regarded upgrading facilities at a Wagga Wagga gun club, the Australian Clay Target Association, as a low priority in 2016.
The corruption watchdog has heard the local member, the then NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire, had lobbied twice for state government funding to upgrade facilities at the association.
Paul Doorn arrives at the ICAC in Sydney on Tuesday.Credit:Janie Barrett
Paul Doorn, who was then an executive director at the Office of Sport, agreed his office was asked on October 26, 2016, to prepare a draft funding submission for the association for the state government’s expenditure review committee (ERC).
He said he remembered the ERC submission “had to be done pretty quickly” but no explanation was given about the need for urgency, other than there appeared to be a timeslot available for the committee to consider the proposal.
The request came from the office of the then Sport Minister, Stuart Ayres. Mr Ayres is not accused of wrongdoing and is expected to give evidence at the ICAC later this week.
He agreed that an ERC submission was a more direct way of obtaining funding for a project than other methods of seeking government funding, and it would be faster than waiting for the next state budget in the middle of the following year.
“You might actually to get the money within weeks or months?” counsel assisting the ICAC, Scott Robertson, asked.
Mr Doorn agreed but said it was more likely to be months than weeks.
Mr Doorn has already told the ICAC that the project did not appear to benefit the state as a whole as there was already an Olympic-grade shooting facility in Greater Sydney.
He agreed that if the Wagga Wagga club, a private facility, was upgraded to have Olympic-standard shooting facilities, it posed a risk of cannibalising events that would ordinarily go to the existing facility that was owned by the government and used during the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The corruption watchdog is investigating the conduct of Mr Maguire and the then NSW treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian, in relation to a $5.5 million grant to the association in 2016/2017. The inquiry has heard the pair were in a secret relationship between 2015 and 2018.
Ms Berejiklian has denied all wrongdoing and insisted she always acted in the best interests of the people of NSW.
Maguire twice sought funding for Wagga Wagga gun club, ICAC hears
The ICAC hears that the then NSW Liberal MP for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire, renewed his representations to the state’s Sport Minister for funding for the Australian Clay Target Association in his electorate in 2016.
Paul Doorn, then an executive director of the NSW Office of Sport, has told the ICAC that he recollected that Mr Maguire wrote a second letter to the minister in 2016, following an earlier letter in 2012.
Paul Doorn arrives at the ICAC on Tuesday.Credit:Janie Barrett.
The minister at this time was Stuart Ayres, who is now the Trade and Industry Minister. Mr Ayres is not accused of wrongdoing and is expected to give evidence later this week.
“My understanding is the local MP wrote to the minister again seeking funding,” Mr Doorn said.
He recalled that the association had “done a bit more work on what was a skeleton proposal” relating to constructing international-standard shooting facilities. He remembers discussions about a clubhouse.
Mr Doorn said one of the challenges of the proposal was the lack of detail provided. No cost-benefit analysis had been provided but the ICAC heard the government was contemplating providing $40,000 in funding to help the association submit an application for more funding.
Mr Doorn said that from time to time the government might provide “seed funding” to allow a cost-benefit analysis to be undertaken by an organisation seeking a larger amount of funding from the state government.
“It’s not standard but it did happen from time to time. It would be rare,” Mr Doorn said.
Asked why the government would spend money on what was regarded at the time as a low-priority project, Mr Doorn said the minister’s office must have supported it.
He agreed that if the Wagga Wagga club, a private facility, was upgraded to have Olympic-standard shooting facilities, it posed a risk of cannibalising events that would ordinarily go to the existing Olympic-standard facility in Greater Sydney that was owned by the government and used during the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The corruption watchdog is investigating the conduct of Mr Maguire and the then NSW treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian, in relation to a $5.5 million grant to the association in 2016/2017. The inquiry has heard the pair were in a secret relationship between 2015 and 2018.
Ms Berejiklian has denied all wrongdoing and insisted she always acted in the best interests of the people of NSW.
Former NSW bureaucrat starts giving evidence
Former NSW bureaucrat Paul Doorn has started giving evidence. He is a former executive director at the NSW Office of Sport, an agency associated with the Department of Communities and Justice.
Michael Toohey, a director at the Office of Sport, gave evidence at the ICAC yesterday. Mr Toohey reported to Mr Doorn.
The men are telling the ICAC about the circumstances in which the state government made a $5.5 million grant to the Australian Clay Target Association in former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire’s electorate in 2016/2017.
Former member for Wagga Wagga Daryl Maguire, who pushed for funding for upgraded facilities for the Australian Clay Target Association in his electorate.Credit:Janie Barrett
The inquiry has heard this morning that Mr Maguire wrote to the then Sport Minister, Graham Annesley, in 2012 about funding for a new shooting centre for the association.
Mr Doorn said it was “not just a shooting range but a broader facility” being contemplated. He said it was not unusual for various MPs to write to the minister seeking funds for various projects.
Mr Doorn agreed that at this stage there was already an Olympic standard shooting facility in Greater Sydney that was used for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. It meant that the funding request was to support a second international-standard shooting facility in NSW.
Asked whether he gave advice about whether this was a good use of funds, Mr Doorn said he advised that it appeared to be in competition with the existing facility but “we would always explore it”.
He agreed that it wasn’t necessarily a good use of funds.
Asked whether the letter led to funding in 2012 or 2013, Mr Doorn said: “I don’t believe so.”
The ICAC heard that the Office of Sport gave the project a low priority. On July 9, 2013, Mr Annesley advised Mr Maguire that the association would not be receiving any funds, and it was not allocated funding in the 2013-14 financial year.
The corruption watchdog is investigating the conduct of Mr Maguire and the then NSW treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian, in relation to the later grant to the association in 2016/2017.
The inquiry has heard the pair were in a secret relationship between 2015 and 2018.
Ms Berejiklian has denied all wrongdoing and insisted she always acted in the best interests of the people of NSW.
What happened on the first day of the hearing?
Yesterday was the first day of two weeks of public hearings at the ICAC. NSW Office of Sport director Michael Toohey was the first witness to give evidence at the hearing.
Today, we are expected to hear from Paul Doorn. He is a former executive director at the Office of Sport, an agency related to the Department of Communities and Justice.
Michael Toohey arrives at the ICAC on Monday.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
The men are both giving evidence about a $5.5 million grant made by the NSW government in 2016/2017 to the Australian Clay Target Association in former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire’s electorate of Wagga Wagga.
Mr Maguire “vociferously advocated for government support” for the association, counsel assisting the ICAC, Scott Robertson, alleged yesterday, and his advocacy extended to lobbying the then-treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian.
The ICAC heard surprise evidence last year that Mr Maguire and Ms Berejiklian were in a secret relationship at that time, between 2015 and 2018.
The grant to the Clay Target Association is one of two “case studies” that are at the heart of the ICAC’s investigation.
Mr Robertson has said “we expect the evidence to demonstrate that the proposals being investigated in this public inquiry [were not subjected to a competitive assessment as to whether those proposals, or either of them, should be preferred to other possible demands on the public purse”.
Mr Toohey gave the following evidence yesterday:
- It would have been “absolutely” relevant to him to know that the NSW Liberal MP championing $5.5 million in state government funding for a project in their own electorate was in a relationship at the time with the then-treasurer, Gladys Berejiklian. “I can’t see how that’s anything but a conflict of interest,” Mr Toohey said.
- Mr Toohey said he only found out about that relationship in October last year when Ms Berejiklian gave evidence at the ICAC.
- Mr Toohey said he was asked in 2016 to prepare an urgent submission to the government’s expenditure review committee for a multimillion-dollar grant for the Australian Clay Target Association. He says the urgency (a single day to complete the submission) was “extremely unusual” and an “inadequate” methodology was used when assessing the benefit to cost ratio of the project. The request for the submission was made to the Office of Sport by the office of the then NSW Sport Minister, Stuart Ayres, who is now Trade and Industry Minister. Mr Ayres is expected to give evidence in the inquiry later this week. He is not accused of wrongdoing.
- Mr Toohey said there was an “idea being thrown around” that the Australian Clay Target Association’s facilities were going to be relevant to getting the Invictus Games in Sydney. “[The] Invictus Games doesn’t have shooting events. The claim that this was somehow related to the bid was imaginative,” Mr Toohey said.
- The NSW government has described the role of the expenditure review committee (ERC) as being to assist cabinet and the treasurer in “framing the fiscal strategy and the budget for cabinet’s consideration”.
- An email shown at ICAC suggested Ms Berejiklian as treasurer had requested the Australian Clay Target Association funding submission be put on the ERC agenda for December 14, 2016.
- Mr Toohey said $5.5 million in funding for the project was approved by the ERC in late 2016 but it was conditional on a business case being prepared and approved first, among other things. Mr Toohey said that in spite of those conditions Mr Maguire announced the funding in January 2017 and did not make clear the money was not guaranteed. Mr Toohey said he felt the announcement was trying to “wedge” bureaucrats and ensure the funding was guaranteed ahead of other steps being completed.“It makes it very difficult for the business case process ... I thought it was a premature statement. It makes it very difficult for people to say no,” he said.
The inquiry is ongoing and no findings have been made. Ms Berejiklian, who is represented by a number of barristers including high-profile Sydney silks Bret Walker, SC, and Sophie Callan, SC, has denied wrongdoing and says history will show she acted in the best interests of the people of NSW.
Counsel assisting the ICAC’s opening address
In case you missed it yesterday, counsel assisting the ICAC in its inquiry, Scott Robertson, delivered an opening address on the first day of the public hearings. He gave a more detailed guide to the matters being investigated by the corruption watchdog.
Counsel assisting ICAC, Scott Robertson, at hearings last year.
Conflict of interest
Mr Robertson said the watchdog is investigating whether former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian exhibited the “high standards of probity” that she set for herself and her ministers when she failed to disclose her secret relationship with former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire and any conflict of interest it might have presented.
Under the NSW ministerial code of conduct, a minister “must not knowingly conceal a conflict of interest from the Premier”.
The ICAC is investigating events from 2012 to 2018, during which Ms Berejiklian was NSW treasurer (from April 2015) and later premier (from January 2017). The ICAC heard last year that Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire were in a relationship between 2015 and 2018.
Gladys Berejiklian prepares to announce her resignation earlier this month. She denies all wrongdoing.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
Duty to report
Under section 11 of the ICAC Act, a NSW minister and other public officials have a duty to report any matter that the person suspects on reasonable grounds concerns or may concern corrupt conduct.
Mr Robertson said the ICAC had no records available to it to show Ms Berejiklian made any report of suspected corrupt conduct involving Mr Maguire to a head of agency or to the corruption watchdog.
Ms Berejiklian forced Mr Maguire to resign as a parliamentary secretary on July 13, 2018, after he gave evidence at a separate corruption inquiry. Days later, on July 21, she announced he would quit State Parliament altogether.
But Ms Berejiklian told a private hearing at the ICAC on September 18 this year that she did not suspect Mr Maguire of corruption when she asked for his resignation in 2018. “I was in shock. I didn’t know what to think.... I hadn’t read what was happening. I can’t remember what I thought at that time,” she said.
Mr Robertson said the watchdog is also investigating whether it should accept that evidence.
Gladys Berejiklian and former MP Daryl Maguire were in a secret relationship between 2015 and 2018.Credit:AAP, Janie Barrett
‘Allow or encourage’ corrupt conduct
Mr Robertson said the watchdog is also investigating whether Ms Berejiklian engaged in conduct that was “liable to allow or encourage the occurrence of corrupt conduct by Mr Maguire”. The ICAC heard last year that Mr Maguire told Ms Berejiklian in some tapped phone calls about his business dealings, and in one call she said: “I don’t need to know about that bit.”
Mr Robertson said “a question arises as to whether Ms Berejiklian’s apparent inaction in relation to the information provided to her by Mr Maguire was apt to allow or encourage Mr Maguire to engage in corrupt conduct”.
Government grants
The ICAC is investigating the conduct of Ms Berejiklian and Mr Maguire in relation to $35 million in state government grants issued to the Australian Clay Target Association and the Riverina Conservatorium of Music in his electorate when Ms Berejiklian was NSW Treasurer in 2016/2017 and 2018. At the time of the grants, the pair were in a secret relationship and Mr Robertson alleges that Mr Maguire “vociferously advocated for government support for those projects within government, including to Ms Berejiklian directly”.
“We expect the evidence to demonstrate that the proposals being investigated in this public inquiry were not subjected to a competitive assessment as to whether those proposals, or either of them, should be preferred to other possible demands on the public purse,” Mr Robertson said.
“And while that does not, without more, indicate corruption, it does raise the possibility that Ms Berejiklian’s conduct had the effect of preferring organisations based in Wagga Wagga to other equally or more deserving
organisations based elsewhere in this state.”
Berejiklian’s response
As we will continue to point out throughout this blog, Ms Berejiklian denies all wrongdoing. She had this to say in her resignation speech on October 1:
The issues which [the ICAC] ... is investigating are historic matters that have already been the subject of numerous attacks on me by political opponents during the last 12 months.
Many of the matters were the subject of questions I was asked by the Opposition while appearing before an estimates committee hearing earlier this year.
I want to be very clear, in all the decisions I have ever made as a Minister or as Premier for NSW, my first consideration has always been the well-being and welfare of the people of this state.
I state categorically, I have always acted with the highest level of integrity. History will demonstrate that I have always executed my duties with the highest degree of integrity for the benefit of the people of NSW who I have had the privilege to serve.
Why is former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian being investigated?
On October 1 this year, the ICAC announced it was investigating whether former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian:
- Engaged in conduct between 2012 and 2018 that was “liable to allow or encourage the occurrence of corrupt conduct” by former NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire, with whom she was in a close personal relationship between about 2015 and 2018.
- Exercised her official functions dishonestly or partially by refusing to exercise her legal duty to report any reasonable suspicions about Mr Maguire to the ICAC. Under section 11 of the ICAC Act, a NSW minister and other public officials have a duty to report to the corruption watchdog any matter that the person suspects on reasonable grounds concerns or may concern corrupt conduct.
- Exercised any of her official functions partially in connection with $35 million in state government grants in Mr Maguire’s electorate, to the Australian Clay Target Association Inc and the Riverina Conservatorium of Music.
It is important to note that Ms Berejiklian has strenuously denied all wrongdoing.
Gladys Berejiklian visits her electoral office in Northbridge days after resigning from politics on October 1.Credit:Louise Kennerley
She announced on October 1 that she would quit politics, triggering a by-election in her seat of Willoughby, but said “history will demonstrate that I have always executed my duties with the highest degree of integrity for the benefit of the people of NSW who I have had the privilege to serve”.
The inquiry is not expected to hear from Ms Berejiklian this week.
In the witness list published last week, the ICAC has foreshadowed that former premier Mike Baird will be among this week’s witnesses. He’s slated to give evidence on Wednesday. Trade and Industry Minister Stuart Ayres is slated to give evidence on Friday.
As always, this is subject to change but you can view the full witness list by clicking here. Today, we are expected to hear from a second NSW bureaucrat, Paul Doorn. At the relevant time he was an executive director in the Office of Sport, an agency related to the Department of Communities and Justice.
Yesterday, we heard from Office of Sport director Michael Toohey about the circumstances in which the state government approved a $5.5 million grant to the Australian Clay Target Association in Mr Maguire’s electorate.
What Maguire and Berejiklian have told the ICAC’s inquiry so far
The ICAC is investigating whether the former NSW Liberal MP for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire, improperly used his public office and parliamentary resources between 2012 and 2018 to obtain a benefit for himself or entities close to him.
The corruption watchdog has heard Mr Maguire used a company called G8way International as the vehicle through which he pursued his commercial opportunities, even though he did not appear on paper as an owner or manager of the company.
Daryl Maguire arriving at the ICAC in October last year.Credit:Rhett Wyman
The ICAC started public hearings in the inquiry on September 21 last year.
Mr Maguire made a number of significant admissions when he gave evidence to ICAC October last year:
- He admitted he used his position as an MP and parliamentary secretary to make money for himself and his business associates, and agreed he sought to “monetise” his public roles for private profit.
- He agreed he turned his office in Parliament House “partly” into an office for G8wayinternational, including conducting business meetings there and asking parliamentary staff to assist him with this work.
- He agreed he knew he was not permitted to use his office or staff and resources in this way, and agreed he knew he was required to use the resources “wholly and solely” in the exercise of his public functions.
- He also agreed he was involved in a fraudulent cash-for-visas scheme for Chinese nationals. “Do you agree that on more than one occasion you received deliveries in your Parliament House office of thousands of dollars in cash associated with a scheme involving the obtaining of Australian visas for Chinese nationals?” counsel assisting ICAC, Scott Robertson, asked on October 14 last year. “Yes,” Mr Maguire replied.
The then-premier, Gladys Berejiklian, also gave evidence before the inquiry last year.
- Ms Berejiklian caught colleagues and the public by surprise by telling the ICAC on October 12 that she had been in what counsel assisting the inquiry called a “close personal relationship” with Mr Maguire from about the time of the 2015 election until at least July 2018. For a full timeline of their relationship, click here.
- Giving evidence at the ICAC, Ms Berejiklian denied that she was turning a blind eye when she said to Mr Maguire in a tapped phone call on September 7, 2017, that “I don’t need to know about that bit” when he was discussing financial interests associated with the proposed Badgerys Creek Airport. She said she didn’t have “any reason to believe that all this pie-in-the-sky fanciful stuff would actually come to fruition, because ... he would often talk about these mega deals and whatever else, but they never seemed to come to fruition”.
- Ms Berejiklian told the ICAC she would have had “no compunction” in reporting Mr Maguire if she had suspected he was involved in any misconduct. “I assumed that he was making the appropriate disclosures,” she said. She told the inquiry “he was always talking big about deals and they always seemed to fall through, so I didn’t take it seriously”.
Good morning and welcome
Good morning and welcome to the second day of our live coverage of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption’s public hearings in Operation Keppel, its long-running inquiry into the business dealings of the former NSW Liberal MP for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire.
I’m Michaela Whitbourn and I’ll be keeping you informed of the latest evidence throughout the day.
The public hearing starts at 10am at the ICAC’s Sydney headquarters and reporters are watching via a live stream because of COVID-19 restrictions. The inquiry is expected to continue for two weeks and will start on most days at the same time, but will start at 9.30am on Thursday and Friday.
Former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian quit politics on October 1 after the ICAC announced that it was expanding the scope of its investigation to examine, among other things, whether she had engaged in conduct between 2012 and 2018 that was “liable to allow or encourage the occurrence of corrupt conduct by Mr Maguire”, a man with whom she was in a secret relationship between about 2015 and 2018.
Daryl Maguire and Gladys Berejiklian.Credit:SMH
That relationship first came to light when Ms Berejiklian gave evidence at the ICAC last year.
You can view a timeline of their relationship here.
Ms Berejiklian announced on July 21, 2018, that Mr Maguire would quit State Parliament after an earlier corruption inquiry into the former Canterbury Council heard he discussed potential commissions with a local councillor from property deals with a wealthy Chinese developer.
In its report in March this year, the ICAC did not make a corruption finding against Mr Maguire in relation to that earlier inquiry but did recommend the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions consider prosecuting him for giving false and misleading evidence at the public inquiry on July 13, 2018.
As we noted yesterday, it is important to be clear that no findings have been made in this inquiry and Ms Berejiklian has strenuously denied wrongdoing.
She had this to say in her resignation speech:
I want to be clear, and all the decisions I have made as minister or premier of NSW, my first consideration has always been the wellbeing and welfare of the people of this state.
I state categorically I have always acted with the highest level of integrity. History will demonstrate I have executed my duties ... with the highest level of integrity for the benefit of the people of NSW for who I have had the privilege to serve.
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