Remember Gladys Berejiklian? No? Here’s a hint. She was for a time state leader of the Liberal Party in NSW and Premier of the nation’s biggest (in economic terms) state.

Our Media Glass House staff recall it was not that long ago she was being touted by sections of conservative and right-wing traditional media outlets (and that’s most of them) as prime minister material.

Predictions were made of her future greatness. But sadly for Gladdy everything in her life turned to shit when COVID-19 hit and pesky little problems like a cruise ship full of super spreaders were let loose on shore, causing havoc not just to the NSW community but to her own political standing.

Then the nail in her political coffin was the exposure of her previously secret relationship with fellow NSW MP Daryl Maguire, the Member for Wagga Wagga.

Maguire was no great catch, it turned out. But he had a Trump-like dealmaker’s head on his shoulders.

But again sadly for Gladdy the potential property development deals – just like Trump’s – were shonky, involved potential kickbacks and huge conflicts of interest. Basically they stunk to high heaven and good old Dazza blabbed all about them to her.

The NSW corruption watchdog ICAC had proof of that in the form of secretly taped phone calls between Dazza and Gladdy.

Sadly for Gladdy that was the end of her political career and she stood down as premier.

ICAC later found she had breached public trust by not disclosing her links to Dazza which had lasted at least five years while she was transport minister, treasurer and then premier.

Dazza too saw his career evaporate and he quit Glady’s government and later the NSW Parliament entirely.

This week, like a turd you can’t flush, Dazza was in the news again after being found guilty by a NSW Local Court Magistrate of giving false or misleading evidence to an ICAC hearing in 2018, and he’ll be sentenced in August.

The memories of his links to the former NSW premier came flooding back to our MGH teams when they read news reports of his latest court case.

Or at least when they read some of the reports.

The Guardian Australia, for instance, devoted a dozen paragraphs in its website story to the case (below at left) and clearly noted Maguire’s former relationship with Berejiklian very early on – in the story’s second paragraph.

Who wouldn’t? After all the former premier is hard to forget once the words “Daryl” and “Maguire” are used consecutively.

ABC News Online, our national broadcaster, presented a story that was almost double the length of The Guardian’s at 23 paragraphs. (below at right)

Oddly though, our MGH researchers found not a single mention of Berejiklian in those 23 paragraphs and therefore not a mention of Maguire’s relationship with her.

They’ve workshopped some possible reasons for the omission of such essential and relevant information but came up blank.

So if anyone from the ABC is reading this and can explain, please let us know.

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