The watchdog overseeing the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption will conduct a formal investigation of the delay in making findings against Gladys Berejiklian and her former partner Daryl Maguire.
The Guardian can reveal the Inspector of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which fields complaints about Icac and oversees its conduct, is preparing to investigate the widely criticised delays.
“The inspector is currently determining the scope of an investigation around the delay in the furnishing of the Operation Keppel report to parliament,” a spokesperson said.
“The inspector intends to make a special report to parliament at the conclusion of her investigation, which she will recommend be made public.”
The current ICAC inspector is Gail Furness SC, a widely-respected barrister who acted as counsel assisting to the child abuse royal commission.
Senior Liberals continued to rally to the former premier’s defence on Friday following the damning findings that she and Maguire, the disgraced former Wagga Wagga MP, engaged in corrupt conduct.
The NSW Liberal party confirmed to the Guardian on Friday morning that it was not giving any consideration to removing Berejiklian as a member after the findings.
The party’s state executive is scheduled to meet on Friday night, but is currently not scheduled to discuss the findings against Berejiklian.
The federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said Berejiklian was “not a corrupt person” and that “her integrity is not in question”.
“What you see in public is what you get in person as well,” he told Nine on Friday morning. “She is a very decent person. She chose a bum, basically. He was a bad guy. She has paid a big price for that.
“Her integrity is not in question. She is not a corrupt person. That is not the person I know. I think she should hold her head high.”
Maguire quit the Liberal party in 2018, shortly after he finished giving evidence to Icac about his attempts to broker property deals and seek commissions on behalf of a Chinese developer.
Fellow Liberal moderate Matt Kean again attacked Icac on Friday morning, questioning how Berejiklian could have been found to have engaged in serious criminal conduct without being referred for prosecution. He also attacked the commission for creating a “media circus” and a “soap opera” in its delivery of the findings.
“What I’m saying is it shouldn’t take two years for the Icac to hand down that report,” he told the ABC. “And what they did is spend millions of taxpayer dollars; they spent an infinite amount of time and resources to tell us something they could have told us two years ago.
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“They didn’t need to create all the media circus, which they did – they issued the release date via press release as if it was a Taylor Swift concert.
“Yesterday, two Icac people marched into Parliament House to hand over the report on live TV. Integrity probes aren’t a soap opera and justice isn’t a show.”
Icac declined to respond to criticisms of the delay or mooted reforms to impose time limits on its investigations.
A spokesperson told the Guardian on Friday that it already had time standards in place against which it measures its performance.
“The commission has not been advised of specific details of any proposed changes and cannot make any further comment in this regard,” the spokesperson said. “The commission will address matters pertaining to its caseload with the parliamentary joint committee when it next convenes.”
Icac made multiple findings against Berejiklian on Friday. It found she should have disclosed her relationship with Maguire, should have told Icac about her concerns about his secret property dealings and that she allowed her personal interests in the relationship to cloud her handling of funding proposals for two of his pet projects: a grant to a gun club and a proposal to build a new recital hall.
Berejiklian has denied wrongdoing, flagged a potential legal challenge and said on Thursday that she had always acted in the public interest.
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