What happened when Daryl Maguire invited Kate McClymont to coffee

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It was baffling how, with his fussy mannerisms and dapper suit with a crisp white shirt and a pink silk tie, the country MP sitting across the table from me could have possibly come across the extraordinary information he was imparting.

Three days earlier, on July 23, 2017, my phone pinged with a text message from state member of parliament Daryl Maguire. “I have something of interest that came my way re Meditch (sic),” he said.

Daryl Maguire and Kate McClymont had coffee at the Westin Hotel (now the Fullerton Hotel).Credit: Composite image

He was referring to the wealthy developer and now-convicted murderer Ron Medich, whose three-month murder trial had concluded recently with a hung jury.

Whatever he knew about Medich, Maguire was reluctant to impart on the phone and suggested we meet at 10am at a cafe in the Westin Hotel, a short walk from Parliament House.

The information Maguire had to share with me was that brothers Roy and Ron Medich had secretly sold their 344-hectare site at Badgerys Creek, right near the proposed new airport, to Boyuan Holdings, a Chinese property developer, for an astonishing half a billion dollars.

I recall asking, with some incredulity, how it was that a Liberal backbencher from Wagga knew about this top-secret $500 million sale to a Chinese company, given that the land in question was hundreds of kilometres from his own electorate.

Tim Lakos (left) and Daryl Maguire at the Bar, Lounge and Room at the Westin Hotel in September 2017, captured in an ICAC surveillance photo tendered into evidence.

Maguire confided that his friend, Tim Lakos, who was head of property acquisitions at rival developer Country Garden, now known Risland, was furious at being gazumped on the Medich deal.

As I caught a cab back to the office, I wondered why Maguire hadn’t simply told me the information over the phone. He hadn’t asked to be a confidential source and there was nothing improper in any of the information he was sharing, so why all the “secret squirrel” business?

What I didn’t know at the time was that Maguire was under surveillance, having become a “person of interest” at the Independent Commission Against Corruption a year earlier.

Ron Medich has been sentenced to 39 years in jail.Credit: Brook Mitchell

On May 9, 2016, the MP had been picked up on a phone tap trying to share a $1.5 million commission with an inner-west Liberal councillor for selling a development site in Campsie to Country Garden, the local subsidiary of China’s biggest property development company.

Maguire’s reticence to speak on the phone may have been because he knew ICAC was onto him. His friend Lakos had been interviewed by ICAC officers on January 17, 2017, about Maguire’s dealings with Country Garden. Lakos said there had never been any discussion about Maguire receiving payment for his introductions.

Lakos admitted telling Maguire that ICAC was asking questions about him. Asked by the ICAC interviewer what Maguire’s reaction had been, Lakos replied: “He didn’t seem all that concerned.”

Maguire’s information turned out to be spot-on. A check on the title deeds of the Medich properties at Badgerys Creek and Bringelly showed that only a fortnight earlier Boyuan had placed caveats on the properties, indicating that it had a legal interest in the land via an option.

William Luong, Louise Raedler-Waterhouse and Daryl Maguire dining at the Marigold restaurant in April 2018. Credit: NSW ICAC

What I didn’t know was that it was doubtlessly Maguire himself who was furious at missing out on this deal which may have netted him millions. It was Maguire who had spruiked the Medich site to Country Garden. Maguire also introduced his property dealing friend William Luong, who became Country Garden’s buyer’s agent in the Medich deal.

“We desperately need this one to happen,” Maguire told Luong, who was to share the commission, in an intercepted call. The MP was referring to the new deal he had on the boil, having discovered controversial bookmakers Bill Waterhouse and son Robbie, along with Bill’s daughter Louise Raedler-Waterhouse, owned a large swath of land near the Mediches.

In May 2017, Maguire met Raedler-Waterhouse, who had taken over from her father as honorary consul-general of Tonga. Maguire was using his position as an MP to tout for business deals throughout the Pacific for Chinese investors.

Raedler-Waterhouse gave evidence that when Maguire had initially sought her help she thought it was for introductions to heads of state. “No,” he told her. “I am interested in the commercial people.” In particular, he was keen on lining up a deal for Tongan squash to be exported to China.

On discovering the Waterhouses owned land near the new airport, Maguire quickly organised dinner at the Marigold restaurant in Chinatown, where he introduced Raedler-Waterhouse to his friend Luong – who was stuck with the bill.

Luong later gave evidence that Robbie Waterhouse had come up with a sliding scale for the commission depending on what sale price was achieved. They were aiming at $330 million. Luong said the upper end of the scale would see him receiving a commission of almost $10 million, of which Maguire would get 10 per cent.

Both Maguire and Raedler-Waterhouse denied there had been any discussion between them about Maguire receiving a cut. However, in his ICAC evidence Luong said, “But I remember Louise asked me, ‘Will you consider to take … care of Maguire?’ I said yes.”

An intercepted call between Maguire and Luong backed up Luong’s understanding. He was heard telling Maguire: “Yep, and one more thing is um, she [Raedler-Waterhouse] asked me, she said um, who will look after Daryl?” Luong told Maguire that he’d replied to Raedler-Waterhouse that he would be looking after the politician, to which Maguire said, “Oh, that was nice of her.”

But the sale of the Waterhouse land to Country Garden proved problematic. It was under the proposed flight path and had been zoned rural rather than for urban development. In order to raise the value of the land and achieve the sale, Maguire worked tirelessly to have the land rezoned and be given road access.

Without disclosing he had a financial interest in the outcome, Maguire irritated senior bureaucrats and ministers by turning up to lobby them with Raedler-Waterhouse in tow. He even gave Waterhouse Gladys Berejiklian’s private email address so she could personally lobby the premier, who Raedler-Waterhouse could not have known was in a secret relationship with Maguire.

Throughout September Maguire was heard telling the premier that the land deal at Badgerys Creek was about to come off.

On Christmas Eve, 2017, Raedler-Waterhouse sent Maguire an effusive email that said, “The people of NSW, including me are fortunate to have you representing them.”

Six months later, when Maguire’s dodgy dealings seeking commissions from property dealings had been made public at ICAC, Berejiklian issued a statement that chastised Maguire, who had “let down … the people of NSW”.

The Waterhouses still haven’t sold their land and Boyuan didn’t buy the Medich land. Only a month before Maguire’s potentially corrupt dealings came to light at ICAC, Ron Medich was sentenced to a maximum of 39 years jail for the 2009 murder of his business associate Michael McGurk.

Boyuan’s option lapsed and in 2021 the Medich property was sold for $499.95 million to an unknown private company, Roberts Jones Badgerys Creek, owned by Jonathan Pan and Bo Gong, who had worked at Bouyan.

Only months later, title records indicate that they had flicked the land to logistics giant DHL, which had lodged caveats on the titles in November 2021.

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