The New South Wales corruption watchdog will hand down its much-anticipated and long-delayed report into former premier Gladys Berejiklian next week.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption announced the report would be released on June 29.
“The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption will furnish its Operation Keppel investigation report, concerning the then member of parliament for Wagga Wagga, the then premier, and others, to the presiding officers at the NSW parliament on Thursday 29 June 2023 at 9.00 am,” Icac said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.
The presiding officers are expected to then release the report to the public and it will be available from the commission’s website.
The findings will be released after repeated delays, blamed on the complexity of the investigation, that led the Covid-era premier to resign in late 2021.
The former premier has repeatedly denied any alleged wrongdoing.
The operation was launched to investigate the conduct of the former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire, then widened to include the then-premier in 2020 after it was revealed the pair had been in a secret “close personal relationship” for several years.
Berejiklian stood down at the height of the state’s pandemic restrictions in 2021 after Icac revealed it was investigating whether she had been involved in “a breach of public trust” by failing to report Maguire’s alleged conduct.
The question at the heart of the investigation was whether Berejiklian breached the public trust by “refusing to exercise her duty” under the state’s anti-corruption law to report matters she “suspected on reasonable grounds concerned or may concern corrupt conduct in relation to the conduct of” Maguire.
McColl was expected to hand down findings last year but the commission has repeatedly delayed publishing an outcome. Earlier this year the commission blamed “complex matters of law and fact”, as well as the quantity of evidence linked to the case.
