The Chaser Report - SPECIAL: GLADYS' SERIOUS CORRUPT CONDUCT

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Who would have thought? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Dom, a momentous day in New South Wales politics. Yes, and such a surprising, Doug Charles, such a shocking and I unprecedented. Who would have thought that the day that ICAC released its report on former Premier Gladys Berichick-Clean? Yes. Her allegedly corrupt conduct.

Allegedly? What do you mean? Well, we're going to get to what they found. Everyone knows. Yeah, they found that she had serious corrupt contact. Who would have thought that when they published that report more than 600 days after the end of the public hearings, everyone's been waiting for this.

For almost two years, their website crashed. They published it. Oh, no. I mean, who would have thought they'd need extra bandwidth for an absolute bombshell about someone who used to run this entire state? Well, can I tell you my conspiracy theory on that? I reckon Optus, we're glad as Perigli and it was now worse. Yes.

was probably running their website. God, I hope Gladys isn't in charge of everyone's private data. It was an inside job, and she probably didn't declare that she worked at Optus when she took the job. There you go. All right, let's talk more about Gladys in a moment. Thank you for your patience.

Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? Fizz is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.com. So, Charles, this is a massive, just bombshell.

Who would have thought? And by the way, apology is for every single person living outside New South Wales because this is going to be a New South Wales heavy episode. Except that Charles, and I know this from your and my good friend, Dave Milner, the voice of Melbourne. Yes. Everyone outside of New South Wales hates Gladys. Hates, because of the long period during,

the lockdowns where a lot of media said she was the genius of managing COVID right before an outbreak happened that shut down Melbourne again. Yes. So they will be enjoying this in Melbourne. In fact, we should probably get mobile on the phone just to gloat. Now, I'm presuming that the main sort of inquiry was about the fact that she didn't lock down the richer suburbs when they caught COVID. And as a result, it spread to poorer suburbs, at which point she immediately locked everything down, but the horse had bolted because she'd let it spread throughout the rich suburbs without any consequences.

I'm sure that is the main focus of the inquiry, was it? All the removalists who spread it down to Melbourne and just literally ceded it from it started in Bondi, then it got into the whole of Sydney, then the whole of New South Wales or the whole of Victoria. Did Gladys even get COVID during this period? What an irony.

I'll tell you what, she might have given it to Darren McGuire though. Although this all happened before, Gladys started dating her current boyfriend who represented her in the hearing. So regardless of the reputational damage that comes out of this, she did get one good thing out of the ICAC hearing. She's dating top barrister

Arthur Moses, and frankly, that's probably pretty convenient today, Charles, given what ICAC found. That is, that's a very good meat cute, isn't it? She was a corrupt politician. He was a barrister on the make. Balance of probabilities. What's under the robe, Arthur?

Anyway, so what this is all about, if you haven't been following the story, no, Charles, ICAC did not look at whether she did a shit job and basically gave us all months of hell, including those in Melbourne. Right as, I think the Finn Review, didn't they have like the greatest leader in Australia and she's on the cover right when we were locked down? Anyway, what this is about is the Australian Clay Target Association. The woman who saved Australia. The woman who saved Australia, that's what it was. She also apparently saved the Australian Clay Target Association, which was located in the electorate of her secret boyfriend, former Wogger MP, Darrell McGuire.

Now, a few journals have written today about just what a shock it was when Gladys Berrigley infronted the media to confess to a relationship with dodgy Daryl who really, like if you had a central casting version of a shonky regional lib, this is him and his name was even Darrell. I mean, it's not possible to be Darrell and not be a bit suss, is it? Yes, oh, definitely. And he had already been forced out of, I think, politics, wasn't it? She'd had to sack him eventually, hadn't she?

because he was corrupt and then it never occurred to her oh by the way maybe as i'm announcing that he's got to go i should mention that we're having sex well here's the thing charles it's really hard to know what to do when you've got a secret boyfriend yeah and your secret boyfriend asks you for money for something in their electric particularly something as inherently pissy as the Australian clay target association association i can't imagine really any merit-based process that went oh let's give a giant crat to the clay target shooters that's that's an area that really deserves multi-million dollar funding or whatever it was. Well, I think Mike Baird, in some of the documents that were discovered,

quipped that it was actually called the Daryl McGuire International Clay Target in the Memorial Shooting Club. And pretty funny, he's kind of going, ah, ha, ha, yes. Oh, what a dodgy thing. What a dodgy thing. Let's just move it through, yeah, that's a good idea. And so, no one, Mike Bair didn't know, no one knew. And the political jenies were astonished, not just that she had any kind of boyfriend

or any kind of, because she was just well-in-line for being single and dedicated to her job. But that of all the people she could have chosen, when there were some hot barristers who were ready to mingle and could defend her, was this Daryl McGuire guy. Yes. But maybe the signs were there all along, Dom. Because who in their right mind wants to become New South Wales Premier? That's true, actually.

You know, somebody who says, oh, I'm married to my job and my job is New South Wales Premier, clearly has terrible judgment in who she likes to marry. That is a very good point. And so therefore, it's not, actually that surprising that she would then hook up with someone who's about as glamorous as a New South Wales premier job. Well, if you're going to date someone from within the party, there's not a lot of options.

No, God, no. I mean, Matt Keane is a friend of the show. Yeah. It's a pretty special little piece of meat there. But Dominic Peritay doesn't have time and you'd have to have eight children if you date Dominic Peritay. But other than that, it's a pretty... He's not in favour of wearing protection.

So I think that's out as a one-like stand. But he is probably in favour of Nazi uniform. in the bedroom, if that's your thing. So she dated this Darrell guy, and let's just look back on some of the quotes that I Kirk heard as part of his serious corrupt conduct, because this is incredible. Darrell said, it's worse than the Spanish Inquisition. People can't even talk anymore. They could be taping your conversation with me right now.

You wouldn't know. They were. They were. Gladys said, you can't have me fixing all your problems all the time, but she did. Yeah, but she did. And then in another one, she said, I can't stand that guy. Tell him to fix it. then after you fix it. I'm sacking him. This is very

joking about a public servant who was looking into a problem with one of McGuire's pet projects. Oh my God. Yeah, it's not the best. So, but the thing that intrigued me about this whole case was I don't know whether you remember, but they had all these highly incriminating

recordings that they'd secretly recorded, which I thought it was fascinating because I think that it was tapping his phone. Tapping Darrell's fine. And frankly, she should have known Daryl's famous, Darrell told her. The phone was probably being tapped. Yes, that's right.

But, and that was the phone that he then accidentally got done with a tractor. Oh, the tractor, yeah. He dropped it in a tractor eventually. Something like that. But then later on, when Gladys was testifying in front of ICAC, she said a whole lot of the thing, like her entire testimony sounded like she was really guilty. But the whole time, she was really defensive. Do you have any quotes from her testimony?

So Mike Baird said, that she should have declared the relationship because obviously she should if you're making a decision about a grant that one of your MPs is backing that's clearly a bit sass it's about clay target cheating you should tell the rest of the cabinet

if you're fucking him particularly if it's Darrell so they can laugh at you it's just not fair yes I know so her view on that was look I respect them this is Mike Bairden Coe they're entitled to their opinion

it's just that I was the only one who could determine what I felt what I felt about the status of that relationship and clearly Charles what she felt was that she didn't want anyone to know that she was sleeping with Darrell yes I think she was using

shame as cover for corruption. Well, it was for convenience. It was good for her. It's the first time that somebody said, no, no, the reason why I was corrupt was because I was too ashamed, to be honest. Well, this is the thing. When this news broke, I think a lot of people felt,

oh, this really humanises Gladys. And someone even said, I can't remember it was, but some witty political commentators said, well, ladies, we've all had a Darrell, haven't we in our past, haven't always given money to their causes. Yeah, taxpayer, mate. Taxpayers money to their causes.

But, yeah, I mean, And we all kind of thought, oh, wow, we've all had a shit partner from the past. It was very well played. So it humanised her, A, that she just had this dodgy X, but also that she didn't want anyone to know. Like that, she didn't want her parents to know she was sleeping with Daryl. And fair enough. Fair enough.

No one would. Gladys also said, this is a juicy one. If we follow the Treasury advice, no rail or road project will ever get built because public good is not always going to give you a financial return. Now, she took advice from the bureaucrats. She said, don't give these grants. They're a terrible idea. She was like, why would we listen to it?

treasury advice. There won't be any pork barreling. But my favourite thing from the hearing, and this is something that's going to live long in New South Wales political history, I regarded him as part of my love circle. Oh. Yeah, Gladys viewed Daryl's part of the circle. Part of the people that I strongly cared for, but I wouldn't have put him in the same category as my parents or my sisters.

And this is after Texas is where she referred to him as family. You tend not to have raunchy sex. Raunchy sex with your parents or your sisters. And frankly, how many people, Gladys were. in the love circle. How wide does the circle go? I mean, was it... Well, the clay pigeon shooters, I think probably went her love circle. But yeah, there's a lot of it. The thing that my favourite quote from her is, um, when she told, uh, McGuire on a tapped call, two rules, be honest and listen to your lawyer. Ironically enough. So it's a strange

thing, Charles, because IAC has found serious corrupt conduct. It's a major thing. I mean, this would end her career if she hadn't chosen David already herself. Yes. But then they They've decided that the DPP shouldn't pursue her for any offence. So they found her, she was seriously corrupt. Yes. But in a way that we just kind of go, oh, okay, well, she's gone now. She's an optus now. What more harm can she do?

Well, isn't that punishment enough working for optus? I've actually heard a conspiracy theory about why she took that job today, which is that she really hates phone tapping. Oh, well, yes. And the Optus Network is so shit that it's basically on track to prevent any phone from ever being tapped because you can't hear anything. With her current secret boyfriend, if she has one, it's like, yeah. A million. Brown paper.

Bag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it would just be inadmissible as evidence. Yeah. That's probably a big part of what it was. If you're going to have a secret affair with someone in, particularly a regional MP.

Yes. to use Telstra. You've got to use Telstra to get that high-quality call. So I don't quite understand why if she's engaged in serious corruption, she just sort of gets away. That doesn't seem like a particularly strong set of laws. I mean, who drafted these laws against corruption? It does make me feel that. Why can't you sort of... But also, isn't it a little bit unfair? Because all the Labor ones went to jail, didn't they? Not all of them. Some of them, right?

Yeah, certainly Eddie a bit. I mean, the thing is she didn't benefit from this herself. Ah, yeah, okay, so. And it was all a long time ago. Well, she did, but she did benefit from it, though, because, you know, she pleased her love her. Yeah, that's true. You know, I mean, arguably, I remember back when, you know, when I studied law, back in the day, they said that sometimes the process is punishment.

And you could argue that with, you know, ICAC taking a very long time. Even Chris Minn, who would have enjoyed this enormously, the current yourself I was premier from Labor. Even he said, look, it's a bit long. Probably bearing in mind any future hearings, he may be part of. It's a bit long. I think I actually should probably lift its game a little bit here. But also, if you're talking about the process as punishment,

having to sleep with Darren McGuire, that is a punish. That is a massive punishment. And having to admit to your family, like your parents and your sisters, that you work for optors. I mean, you know, these are really tough things that she's had to do. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore?

FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.ca. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser Report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. So what does that mean professionally?

Like, did she now, like, will that, that impinge on her ability? I suppose she could get a job at PWC, no problem. No, that's true. She could be there, the new CEO. But like, does Optus have any problem with having a seriously corrupt person as a senior management? I think, wouldn't, let's be honest, wouldn't they just think this is the useful skill set for us? Yes, yes. And anyway, all their secrets have been leaked already.

Like, they've got no thing of tapping. Probably not all. Yeah, for sure, there's some more stuff. So, she's released a statement. I can assure you, it's all on the dark weird. Yeah. If it's optus, it's not locked down. Speaking is an.

officer, yes. So she released a statement. She said, look, serving the people of New South Wales was an honour and privilege. At all times, I've worked my hardest in the public interest. Nothing in this report demonstrates. Otherwise, let us... Except for the... Did you read the report?

I mean, unless you think the public interest is in funding clay target shooting project that should not have got money. Unless you think that is in the public interest. I mean, it's in the public interest of Darren McGuire, perhaps. Yeah. I mean, at least she's learned her lesson. At least, like, she's just going down, saying, that she hasn't learned anything from this process.

The other thing was she promised... It sounds like she should be prosecuted. Like if she's going to say, oh, actually nothing says that I didn't do it. This report says I didn't do anything wrong. Isn't the way you treat people who say that is you go, no, you actually did. Here's a jail sentence. You know what I mean? I mean, remember what happened with Nick Griner?

Nick Griner was found guilty of corruption. Former Premier had to leave. Ironically, the man who set up the ICAC to try and go after Labor. And then he sort of fought it in the Supreme Court and it all went away and there weren't any consequences. So, and Barry O'Farrell was found to have acted corruptly, admittedly on a very, very minor thing involving a bottle of wine. He left and is now the ambassador to India.

So you can bounce back after a negative IAC hearing. She'd probably be the CEO of Optus before long. Yes. Well, she'd probably run IAC. And also, her corporate values are so well aligned with Optus. I mean, when people ask her for money for a stupid purpose, she says yes. She's a yes person.

She also says, thank you to members of the public for their incredible support. this will sustain me always. Members of, or Darryl McGuire's member, perhaps. The report's currently being examined by my legal team. My boyfriend's giving the ones over. I wonder how much money he made out of her. Like, has she been paying him? Because that would be, that would be,

was the government paying? Oh, my God, is this another ICAC? Oh, this is, that's what she's done. She's hooked up so she can get half the money from the legal fees. Ah, what a, what a piece of work. We should look into that. I'm just looking up now. That's genius.

I reckon, I don't know for sure. They're going out to expensive dinners on the fees that she has generated for her boyfriend. Let me just say this, Charles. This is another scandal. 2021. And it's jiu-jitsu, right? Because if we launch another proceeding against them, there'll be more money for them. All right.

So what I'm getting here, this is from 2021, Samantha made in news.com. that are you, taxpayers cop, 10 grand a day legal bill. So she was allowed to have taxpayer fund a legal team with two senior council, I think Arthur Moses is a senior council, up to 10 grand a day. So yeah. Mind you, 10 grand a day, it's not going to buy you a whole day. So this was for, this was for, um... And does that include sex?

Like, does he have to put out? Well, this is for Brett Walker and Sophie Callan, not for, um, Arthur Moses. So maybe that already been dating. I would have thought. But the point is presumably at some point, Arthur Moses got paid by the state of New South Wales representing Gladys, right? I would have thought that they'd be paid more than 10 grand a day. That seems very small.

It's a discount. Yeah. Apparently, they've only got five grand a day. My day rate is higher than that. Oh, there you go. Oh, no, apparently Brett Walker can charge 25. Why didn't we become barristers, Charles? They get 25 grand a fucking day.

And apparently the state government will pay for it. So apparently we drop half a mill on our legal fees. I'm going to hook up with a barrister, then do something incredibly corrupt and profit. I think everyone should. It seems like a good way to go. And there's no consequences, especially if it's serious corruption. But it's also good to know that if you're dating the right person, you can get even the stupidest grant approved.

Like a clay target, in what universe is there any public interest in clay target shooting? Are we going to have some sort of invasion by clay pigeons at some point? Like, that's clearly a ridiculous rort. And I'm just saying that because I hate clay target shooting as a concept. But I think the point is that... Like, if we sleep with the right people, Charles, the current government. Can't we just invent the Chaser Satire Institute, very richly funded by the state government?

Other gems from the intercepted calls, I hadn't read about it. Mr. McGuire referred to Ms. Berrigley and says, Samantam, the man, it's Babe. He's talking to the treasurer. Hey, babe. Hey, babe. Money for clay pigeons, can I? And she called him her numero uno, which is pretty hot. Oh, that's nice.

Darry you're my numero uno reason why I'm going to have my entire career town. He also said that some of his... Oh, that's the other fun bit. It's all coming back to me now. All those calls where Darrell complained. This is the stuff everyone could relate to. Darrell complained about all of his business deals that weren't working out. Remember that?

She was going, yes, dear, and clearly not interested. At one point, he said that some of his business associates were sucking people's dicks and they can get fucked. And Gladys is there as treasured just going, oh, oh, sorry, Darrell. Sorry, you can't get your business. And he's supposed to be an MP at this point in time, right? Like, surely there should be a rule that if you're... a state MP, you shouldn't be able to do property deals on the side. Like, isn't that basically

a pretty simple rule? I think that dates back to sort of rum rebellion, rum core times when, you know, like everyone, like everyone was corrupt, like the whole way you, you know, sort of just getting paola. Yeah, yeah, you're just, as an official. That's why New South Wales is so always corrupt is because it has this longstanding history. Yeah, it's built in. Well, and just to make this more federal, there's some extraordinary allegations. at former Minister Stuart Robert, which say that he did a deal with a consulting company where every time they got a government contract

that he helped them get, he got pay-old. And he's denied this. This is a perfect thing for the new NACT have a look at, the National IACCAC, the National Anti-Corruption Commission. This guy, Anthony Daly. And you know what could happen is if he's found guilty of serious corruption, nothing.

Imagine that. He must be shaking. shaking in his beats. Well, this is a lobbying firm, partly owned by his Stuart Roberts' friend and former associate. It's a Synergy 360. And they helped global technology companies get more than $350 million of contracts. Now, the difference here, to be fair to Gladys, is it the only, is that he would have, if this is true, gotten money.

He would have gotten money before this work. Whereas all Gladys got was some presumably shithouse sex. A bit of hot toddy. From Darrell. She got a slice of Darrell. No, I think Darrell was known to be a bit of a cat and a bounder before he hooked up with cladders. I think, I think everyone wanted a slice of tariff. Oh, really?

Yeah. That's my understanding. As I say, when you're in the South Wales Liberal Party, you've got to pickings a bear. But my point is she didn't make money out of this. So this could be considerably worse. This might, if it's born out. And an active act, what we've established is that she has made money out of the corruption

proceedings. Potentially. Yeah. Oh, it's wonderful. It's like a Russian doll in that there's things within other things, but also being Russian, it's entirely corrupt. I think it sort of explains why I'm not as rich as I'd hoped that everyone else seems to be able to afford their mortgage. Yeah, it's just because they all have sweet consulting deals.

Yes. It's extraordinary. I mean, every organisation, this is the thing that's come out of the PwC inquiry is that every single organisation in this country pays millions of dollars from somewhere. Yes. Like universities do, public service departments do. Presumably there's another arm of the chases somewhere that we're not aware of paying giant consulting bills to PWC and KPMG.

We're the suckers. We are. Okay, we're going to set it up. Chase a consulting. Chase a consulting partners. The one thing you know for sure is that the advice will be worthless. Like there's going to be no concealing. The million dollar advice will be worth this.

And it will be something like, trust us, you can't trust us. Trust us, you can't trust us. That's perfect. And also, we won't leak the information, the confidential information you give us to our other clients because we won't have any. We're only going to get one at most. There you go. That's a lovely new business direction for us.

Charles, let's make it happen. Our gear is from Road. We are part of the iconoclass network. Log on to chaser.com. com.com slash consulting. Yes. And I'll set that up this afternoon. All you need to do.

Don't worry about a detail website. Just copy PWCs and just make it so that it just automatically generates massive invoices. Yep. Okay. Cool. To anyone who. Yes. Oh, we won't do the work.

We'll just get the invoice. Yeah, just do the invoice. Yep. Okay. Well, that's what people want. Perfect. Yep. Okay.

Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca.