The responses to ICAC’s finding of ‘serious corrupt conduct’ against former NSW Liberal premier Gladys Berejiklian seem to be binary: some ridicule ICAC, others deride Gladys. But in all the argy-bargy, there is one aspect that is not addressed in the aftermath of the ICAC’s televised delivery (why?) of its report, gestated for over 18 months. It’s the abject ignorance of ICAC of the political process, the context in which Berejiklian operated. Counsel assisting was out of his depth, which can be seen in the following extract to contribute to what is commonly known as barking up the wrong tree.

The transcript below is reproduced from the ICAC records.

Mr Scott Robertson: Just have a look on the second thing attributed to you after the second dash. It says, ‘I’ve got you now, got you the 170 million in five minutes.’ Do you see that there?

Ms Gladys Berejiklian: Yep, ah hmm.

Robertson: Now, having been refreshed with at least some of the context, the fact that a reference to the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital Stage 3 was in the preceding budget papers before this conversation with Mr Maguire, are you able to assist as to what you were saying when you were telling Mr Maguire on 16 May, 2018, that you had got him $170 million in five minutes?

Berejiklian: I can only make this assumption and that is that the money was already allocated in the budget but the issue is that members of parliament like to see it as a separate line item because it was a separate stage. He needs to explain to his community that that particular stage was being funded. So the money was already there. It’s how it’s presented. And many colleagues often have those issues where a commitment is made or money is allocated and it’s put up as a general line item, but they want to be able to explain to their communities that the allocation is actually there. So the money had already been agreed to by government, it had gone through the proper process, the relevant minister would have had to have made that recommendation, and my assumption would have been that it’s how it was presented in the budget papers so that any member, including him was able to explain to his community that the Stage 3 funding had commenced. 

And in fact I see from the budget paper there, the end date was 2022 and often the allocations are less in the first instance and then the balance of the sums are, are heavier in the, towards the end of the project, when most of the capital works are undertaken.

So I see from there absolutely nothing unusual. If anything, I may have, and I have no recollection of this, spoken to the Treasurer to make sure that it was presented in a way in the budget where the local member was able to confirm to the community that the commitment was being made.

But as to the dollars, they were already in the budget. Nobody on this planet can get that amount of money overnight and I certainly would never have done that. I am a stickler for going through the processes, I am a stickler for making sure everything is done by the book and I would never have been able to pluck that money out of thin air in five minutes. That’s just absurd, absolutely absurd. 

Robertson: So at least a possibility is that when you said to Mr Maguire that you had got him the $170 million in five minutes, what you in fact got him is not actual new money but a reference in the budget papers to money that had been committed in previous budget years. Is that right?

Berejiklian: That could very well have been the case, yeah.

Robertson: But do you at least agree that the intervention that you apparently engaged in on 16 May, 2018, getting $170 million in five minutes, perhaps simply getting it in the budget papers as opposed to getting new money, that’s not the kind of intervention that you would have made for any other member of parliament?

Berejiklian: That’s incorrect. It would have been. I’ve had many instances where members of parliament are upset because we’ve made a commitment and sometimes in some portfolios a minister, or the line item might be planning money and in that planning money there may be several projects that are bundled up in that and members get anxious when they can’t go back to their community and show the line item. So in subsequent years, and certainly when I was Treasurer, you often have a separate sheet of election commitments so that the general line items can be determined and demonstrated to the community. So, it, that’s a question of presentation and I would have absolutely done that for other colleagues, absolutely explained to them. In fact we even had supplements to the budget to satisfy colleagues’ concerns that if a commitment had been made but money hadn’t been spent yet, but the money had been allocated, that we made that transparent to the community. Of course I would have done that for other colleagues, in fact I have. And I’m very comfortable if you go and ask some of them

Andrew L. Urban is the author of Gladys – staying strong (Wilkinson Publishing).