ICAC Live: Daryl Maguire is grilled on the third day at...

Von Paige Cockburn

Good morning Paige. I am terribly longing for the first GIF of the day here.

-gif hungry

I see a few gif hungry people in the comments, so I’ll make a commitment.
This is what the newsroom feels like right now while we wait for today’s drama.

The Liberals continue to gather around Gladys

Older liberal colleagues from Gladys Berejiklian again throw their support behind their leader this morning.

Transport Secretary Andrew Constance says none of the evidence presented by Daryl Maguire has altered the Prime Minister’s report of the events.
The ICAC released documents yesterday showing that the premier had two dinners with Daryl Maguire, his business partner Phil Elliott and his partner Karen Barbey at Wagga Wagga.

Mr. Constance said it did not raise any alarm bells.

“Mr. Elliott was a campaign officer and he was the campaign manager of Daryl Maguire. So it will not surprise me that the prime minister had dinner with him after an event in Wagga.

“I think the most important point is that the prime minister has thousands of dinners and lunches and breakfasts with lots and lots of people so I wouldn’t read about them too much.”

Mr Constance believes the evidence the Prime Minister presented on Monday will stand.

“There are no allegations against the prime minister, the prime minister did nothing wrong.”

Premier had dinner with Maguire’s closest business associate

More than 2,200 pages of evidence were publicly released by the ICAC yesterday afternoon, resulting in heavy reading.

For your information, these were separate from the private transcripts that were accidentally released by ICAC and later withdrawn.
Our reporter Ursula Malone went through this evidence, which consists mainly of interview transcripts, and got some interesting results:

The documents showed that Gladys Berejiklian attended two dinners with Daryl Maguire and his close friend and business partner Phillip Elliott.
A dinner was held at an unknown time at Mr. Maguire’s house in Wagga Wagga, and Mr. Elliott’s partner, Karen Barbey, was also present.

The other dinner was at Romano’s Hotel in Wagga Wagga and was attended by the same foursome.

The details of the dinners were revealed during an interview with Ms. Barbey that was taped at Wagga Wagga Police Station in July 2019.

In it, Ms. Barbey admitted to transferring money to G8Way International – a company that Mr. Maguire effectively controlled.

Over the past two days, Mr Maguire has admitted using his parliamentary office and resources to gain benefits for G8Way International.

He also said he used G8way International to provide “top-level government access” for private corporate projects.

Let’s recap

In case you missed any part of the drama yesterday (there was a lot of it) we’ll catch up with you:

• On his second day of taking evidence at the ICAC, former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire admitted to running real estate deals behind the prime minister in order to build a financial future with her
• Mr Maguire said he has been in a relationship with Gladys Berejiklian since 2015 and the two broke up in early August
• The ICAC paused its public livestream and held a private hearing on matters that “disregarded” Ms. Berejiklian and Mr Maguire’s personal relationship but inadvertently posted the minutes on their website before it was removed 30 minutes later
• Mr Maguire admitted that he had used his parliamentary office to facilitate a development agreement with West Sydney, which he discussed with Mrs Berejiklian
• The House of Lords passed a motion requiring Ms Berjeiklian to deliver certain emails to Parliament after telling the ICAC that she had a private email address

Good Morning!
I’m Paige Cockburn and I’ll keep you updated on the latest developments in the Gladys Berejiklian / Daryl Maguire saga.

Pressure is mounting on the Prime Minister and there is more evidence from Mr Maguire at the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) today.
Stay tuned.