REFLECTIONS ON PREMIER GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN

Gladys Berejiklian was Australia’s rockstar premier. The first woman elected to lead NSW, she steered the state through devastating bushfires, drought and a once-in-a-generation pandemic with a steady hand and successfully navigated the waves of COVID with a sterling reputation as a dedicated and reliable public servant. But, Berejiklian was harbouring a secret, revealed during ICAC proceedings in 2020 and which would eventually bring down one of the country’s most deeply respected leaders.  Alexandra Smith is state political reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald and author of The Secret, the story of Gladys Berejiklian’s rise in politics which ended in the dramatic last weeks of her premiership. To reflect on her book and the Berejiklian years, Alexandra Smith addressed The Sydney Institute on Wednesday 21 September 2022.

REFLECTIONS ON PREMIER GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN

ALEXANDRA SMITH

Thanks for inviting me here tonight. I do think it’s quite fitting that I’m at The Sydney Institute, because many of you will probably remember that Gladys Berejiklian gave the Annual Dinner address in 2018, when she was Premier. That was an interesting time and moment for Gladys because she was finally convinced to talk about herself a little, to open up about her family background. As she tells the story, Gerard encouraged her to do that.

The premier had wanted to talk in her trademark way about slightly less interesting things such as infrastructure and the economy and boast about how well New South Wales was doing. Gerard said to her, even by this audience’s standard, that may be a little boring. So, he encouraged her to open up and talk a bit about her family and her background, which is such an important part of who she is. And for the first time that night, in her speech, we heard about her background, her Armenian heritage, and she spoke about losing some 40 relatives in the 1915 genocide. She told lovely stories about her early days as a child, starting school without speaking a word of English. She went off to school, as a little girl, terrified. But from the beginning, she worked so hard to learn English, to catch up with all the other kids. And she did it. And that was the start of commitment, dedication and real grit to succeed.

So speaking here tonight is very fitting. When talking about my book on Gladys Berejiklian, I am asked the same three or four questions. So, I might beat you to those questions and reflect on them because I’ve come to think a little bit more about why people have asked these questions. And why certain things are in the book and why I approach things in a particular way.

The first question I inevitably get is, why does my book start with a quote from Khloe Kardashian? I don’t know if you all know of Khloe Kardashian. She’s part of the Kardashian family, which is America’s most famous celebrity family. Until last year, they had a very famous reality TV show called Keeping Up With The Kardashians. To give some perspective, Khloe Kardashian has 271 million Instagram followers. I have 320. So, she is huge.

Gladys Berejiklian is a big fan of the Kardashians. She makes no secret of really loving reality TV shows. We’ve all got our vices, that is hers. I always liked her talking about that, because it showed a tiny glimpse into her life that she didn’t often share. I can imagine, after working these long days in Macquarie Street or at 52 Martin Place and coming home to unwind in front of a TV with a show like that. It is totally acceptable and endearing.

But there’s another more significant reason for that quote. The Kardashians are Armenian, like Gladys. And they are very passionate about the Armenian cause as is Gladys Berejiklian. And, in a remarkable way, they use their huge social media following. There’s several of them – Khloe and several others all starting with K. Often they use their huge social media following to progress the Armenian cause, to talk about the events of the 1915 genocide, and to support the Armenian diaspora around the world. So even though, on a superficial level, they’re just a celebrity family that makes millions from being beautiful and having reality TV shows, they use their big pull and their big social following for some good. So that is why that quote is at the start of a political biography. And it’s the question I get asked most because, unless you know the background, it probably seems somewhat strange. But when my editor suggested it, I thought it was a nice touch to link Gladys to a couple of things in her life and her story.

The next most common question is, why did I write a book about Gladys Berejiklian? The answer is really easy. It’s not because of what went on in her private life. It’s not because I thought there were some salacious tales to be told. It was very simple: I thought Gladys Berejiklian had an incredible story to tell. Starting from those days of that little five-year-old, going to North Ryde Public when she couldn’t speak a word of English, to rising all the way to the top, to being the first popularly elected female Premier.

When you’re in public life, you almost have an obligation, or you have to accept that your moment in history is probably going to be documented. And it should be. But, it won’t surprise you that this is an unauthorised biography. I did approach Gladys very early in the piece and asked her if she would like to talk. Of course, that was the appropriate and polite thing to do. She was very kind but said, “Thank you, but no, thanks.” I totally understand that, because it’s not who she is. She’s a very closed book. I’m sure she would feel deeply uncomfortable about talking at length about herself. Her then media director also advised her not to talk to me and suggested that perhaps maybe her friends shouldn’t talk either. I think that was poor advice.

As I say to people, authors write books so that people will read them, buy them and enjoy them. Publishers publish books, obviously, so people buy them. And nobody would have been interested in a salacious book about Gladys Berejiklian. What we know from her and particularly her time through the black summer bushfires, and then the pandemic, people from all walks of life, from all political persuasions really loved Gladys Berejiklian. It’s incredible that when she left politics and faced an Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry into her conduct, she was more popular then than she’d ever been throughout her leadership.

So, it struck me that there was a fascinating story to tell about Gladys Berejiklian. And I believed, at this point in history, it was time to look at state premiers. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that on the same day my book was published, a book in Victoria was published about Premier Daniel Andrews. For the first time, probably in living memory, state premiers have had such a big role in who we are, what we do, and that was all because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For people who had no interest in politics, who were very disengaged, Gladys Berejiklian was beamed into their homes every day at 11 am. She became a crucial part of our lives. Back in March 2020, it was a time of great fear. None of us knew what was happening. All we knew was that a little-known virus had made its way into Australia, into New South Wales, and it was increasingly impacting our lives. Throughout those early days, Gladys Berejiklian was a safe pair of hands. She led us through with Kerry Chant, the Chief Health Officer, by her side. The pandemic lifted state premiers in the eyes of many people. We had been used to the Prime Minister addressing the nation – the most well-known public figure. But for the first time in living memory, state premiers, particularly Andrews and Berejiklian, really became important in our discourse and were part of what we discussed.

Many of Gladys Berejiklian’s allies spoke to me for the book. They didn’t do it out of disloyalty to Gladys, even though she had indicated she didn’t want them to be part of the book. They did it because they realised that her story is an important one to tell. I’ve known Gladys Berejiklian since 2007, when I first came back from overseas to cover the state election that year. Gladys Berejiklian was in opposition and even though she was one of Barry O’Farrell’s main attack dogs, she had an incredible way of engaging with people and was a very warm person who connected with the broader community.

Yet while I covered so much of her career, there was a lot I didn’t know about her, including some incredibly important policies, particularly progressive social policies, that she really drove. One of those which was probably the most damaging to her leadership and also her standing in the party, was the decriminalisation of abortion. That was a very destabilising time in Gladys Berejiklian’s leadership. It was a policy that divided the Liberal Party more than it divided any other party. It didn’t divide the Nationals, it didn’t really divide Labor, even though everybody was given a conscience vote. But it was hugely divisive for the Liberals.

I covered this issue very extensively and I remember thinking, “I wonder why Gladys isn’t being more involved in this policy.” I knew she was hugely supportive of it. I knew that she really wanted to see it pass parliament without too much fuss. But she was very much on the side-lines. When it came to debate the bill, she didn’t speak. And when she came to vote on the bill, she slipped in quietly to the house, sat off to the side and didn’t make a fuss. I remember at the time thinking, “I wonder why, as a female who really supports this, isn’t she being more forthright and more open about her position?”

Then, when I was researching this book, I discovered from independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich that Gladys Berejiklian was incredibly involved behind the scenes. She didn’t need to be out in front of everybody trumpeting her views. She was a mentor to Alex Greenwich, she was there to give her wisdom and tell him how to shepherd through this difficult policy. But she didn’t do it in any way that was overt, or too obvious, possibly because she was concerned about some within her party, the right-wing, who were very angry with her for allowing the policy to come before parliament. As Alex Greenwich explained to me, she felt as leader that she didn’t want to influence anybody. It was such a personal issue. Of course, it was. And she was there to help Alex and guide him and make sure the policy passed. But she felt it wasn’t her job to actually stand up and be the public face of it.

As I mentioned, I’ve been covering Gladys since 2007 and there’s a lot that she achieved that I wasn’t aware of, and a lot of people wouldn’t have been. That was  another reason why I wanted to document her career. A rise starting in Peter Collins’ office as a very junior electorate officer all the way to being part of Barry O’Farrell’s opposition, then his government, the first female transport minister, the first female treasurer, and on to being Premier. Is such an interesting story.

But we can’t ignore the fact that her premiership ended because of a terrible decision she made. Spoiler alert, there is nothing in this book that goes into Gladys’ personal life beyond what was publicly revealed by ICAC. Gladys’ downfall and her story and her legacy isn’t about the salacious details of a relationship she had with Daryl Maguire. But what it is about was her decision, which she stuck to for many, many years, not to declare this relationship. That was what brought her undone. A lot of women have had a Daryl, a dud boyfriend, in their past. That’s not what this is about. That’s not what this book is designed to be about. But we can’t ignore the fact that it is part of her story. And it is still incredible that it happened.

When the witness list came out for Daryl Maguire, in October 2020, Gladys Berejiklian’s name was on the list. We all thought there could be no more boring witness who would appear. We assumed that nothing would come out other than Gladys Berejiklian talking about a former colleague who had a corruption cloud hanging over his head and he had to leave parliament. In fact, she had to recruit Barry O’Farrell to push him out the door. Maguire wanted to dig in and run as an independent but Gladys insisted he had to go. When Gladys Berejiklian appeared at 10am on a Monday, I was where all self-respecting political editors are, in David Jones, unaware of what was about to unfold. When it did, it was an incredible shock to everybody. Nobody knew that was coming. Nobody suspected. And nobody knew what this actually meant. After it broke, there was real fear within the parliamentary Liberal Party that Gladys Berejiklian wouldn’t be able to survive.

Not only did she survive it, she went on to become more popular than she’d ever been. She had very difficult times, but it wasn’t due to what had come out through ICAC. If you remember, we later faced the Delta COVD-19 wave which was much trickier than the first outbreak. We had some really tough times in Sydney. Fatigue had started to set in and people were not as forgiving for mistakes. And mistakes were made. We can’t ignore that. Gladys wouldn’t meet with the 12 mayors who were really angry about the division within the city and politically, it was a difficult time for her but not because of what had happened at ICAC. It was weariness that had set in because of the seemingly never ending restrictions of the pandemic.

I have asked myself – would Gladys Berejiklian still be premier if ICAC hadn’t happened? Yes, absolutely. She would be. She would lead the Coalition to the next election if that’s what she wanted to do, and would be very hard to beat. But once she was the subject of an ICAC inquiry, there was no way she could survive. Not because she wasn’t very popular with voters. But because she set the rules for her other ministerial colleagues, and she expected them to abide by them. Which meant she had to do the same. There was no option there for Gladys.

Which takes me to the next question people ask – what do I think ICAC will find? I always say that’s not for me to comment on. I’m not a lawyer, it’s not appropriate for me to pre-empt a judgement . What I will say is I am firmly of the view that Gladys Berejiklian should have declared that relationship because there was potential for a conflict of interest. And she had nothing to lose through making a declaration. Former premier Mike Baird had to appear before ICAC which was very difficult and very devastating for him since he and Gladys have been close friends. But, as he said at ICAC, she could have spoken to him about it confidentially. Of course, people do not need to know about Gladys Berejiklian’s private life, or anybody’s private life, as long as it doesn’t have any impact on their public life. And so, often people say to me, but why did we need to talk about Gladys’ private life? Why can’t a politician have a private life? Of course, anybody can, and they deserve that. But the rules are different when you’re in public life. So, I maintain that Gladys had an obligation and should have declared that relationship. How ICAC proceeds with that, that’s not for me to comment on.

I am still struck by how popular Gladys Berejiklian was when she left parliament. To leave, under a cloud of corruption, and still be incredibly popular is extraordinary. Having people send you flowers, people who have never met you, urging you to stay and not go. People being devastated that Gladys was no longer going to be their leader after what she had taken us through. So, unless there’s an incredibly damning finding, I really believe that Gladys Berejiklian could rise again, in a federal capacity. She’s now gone to the private sector. And she says, that’s what she really wants to do. I’m sure it’s a great challenge. And it’s probably a good break from the grind of what she had to do. But Gladys is also hugely devoted to the Liberal Party. If the Liberal Party came to her and said, “We need you to win back a seat, such as North Sydney”, I really wonder whether she would be able to turn that down.