Former NSW Premier to testify in corruption investigation
The Australian state of New South Wales’ (NSW) former Premier Gladys Berejiklian will face the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) today over her relationship with the disgraced former parliamentarian Daryl Maguire.
The hearing comes as ICAC investigates whether Berejiklian breached public trust and overlooked alleged corruption scandals while leading NSW. Accusations include the over-allocation of state grants to her then-boyfriend’s electoral district in Wagga Wagga between 2012 and 2018. As a result of the accusations, Ms. Berejiklian announced her resignation from the office of NSW Premier and as a member of parliament in September.
Berejiklyn led NSW to become the first Australian state to reach the federal vaccination target. In her place, Dominic Perrottet—a socially-conservative Liberal MP— began his leadership of NSW’s governing coalition and the COVID-19 recovery.
It is likely that the Berejiklian corruption hearing will result in her exit from NSW state politics. Moreover, the corruption hearing will lead to calls to establish a more extensive anti-corruption committee to deal with matters that affect federal politics in the medium-term. Also, state government corruption will likely take center stage in the next year’s federal election as pressure mounts over grant scandals in NSW and branch-stacking in Victoria.
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