Daryl Maguire revealed Ron Medich’s sale of the Badgerys Creek property to Kate McClymont
What I didn’t know at the time was that Maguire was being monitored, having become a “person of interest” with the Independent Commission Against Corruption a year earlier.
Ron Medicch was sentenced to 39 years in prison.Credit: Brooke Mitchell
On May 9, 2016, the lawmaker’s phone was bugged and he was trying to get a liberal Inner West councilman to pay a US$1.5 million commission for the sale of a development property in Campsie to Country Garden, the local subsidiary of China’s largest real estate development company , to share .
Maguire’s reluctance to speak on the phone could be because he knew ICAC was coming for him. His friend Lakos was interviewed by ICAC officials on January 17, 2017 about Maguire’s dealings with Country Garden. Lakos said there was never any discussion of Maguire receiving payment for his performances.
Lakos admitted to telling Maguire that ICAC had been asking questions about him. When asked by the ICAC interviewer how Maguire reacted, Lakos replied: “He didn’t seem too concerned.”
Maguire’s information turned out to be accurate. A review of title deeds to the Medicch properties at Badgerys Creek and Bringelly revealed that Boyuan had made reservations on the properties just two weeks earlier, indicating it had a legal interest in the land through an option.
William Luong, Louise Raedler-Waterhouse and Daryl Maguire dining at Marigold Restaurant in April 2018. Credit: NSW ICAC
What I didn’t know was that it was undoubtedly Maguire himself who was furious for missing out on that deal that could have potentially made him millions. It was Maguire who had transformed the Medich site into the Country Garden. Maguire also introduced his real estate agent friend William Luong, who became Country Garden’s buyer as part of the Medich deal.
“We need that badly,” Maguire said in a bugged call to Luong, who was supposed to share the commission. The MP was referring to the new deal he had at stake after discovering controversial bookmaker Bill Waterhouse and his son Robbie, along with Bill’s daughter Louise Raedler-Waterhouse, owned a large tract of land near the Medices.
In May 2017, Maguire met Raedler-Waterhouse, who had succeeded her father as Honorary Consul General of Tonga. Maguire used his position as MP to promote deals to Chinese investors across the Pacific.
Raedler-Waterhouse stated that when she first asked her for help, Maguire thought it was about the introduction of heads of state. “No,” he told her. “I’m interested in the commercial people.” In particular, he was interested in striking a deal to export Tongan squash to China.
When Maguire discovered the Waterhouses’ property near the new airport, he quickly organized dinner at the Marigold restaurant in Chinatown, where he introduced Raedler-Waterhouse to his friend Luong – who disagreed with the bill.
Luong later stated that Robbie Waterhouse had developed a scale of commission based on the sales price achieved. Her goal was $330 million. Luong said that at the higher end of the scale, he would receive a commission of nearly $10 million, of which Maguire would receive 10 percent.
Both Maguire and Raedler-Waterhouse denied there was any discussion between them about Maguire receiving a cut. However, in his ICAC statement, Luong said, “But I remember Louise asking me, ‘Would you consider taking care of Maguire?’ I said yes.”
An intercepted phone call between Maguire and Luong confirmed Luong’s understanding. He was heard saying to Maguire, “Yeah, and one more thing is um, her [Raedler-Waterhouse] asked me she said um who’s going to take care of Daryl?” Luong told Maguire that he had replied to Raedler-Waterhouse that he would take care of the politician, to which Maguire said, “Oh, that was nice of her.”
However, the sale of the Waterhouse property to Country Garden proved problematic. It was below the proposed approach path and was designated as a rural zone rather than an urban zone. In order to increase the value of the property and secure the sale, Maguire worked tirelessly to rezon the property and gain road access.
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Without revealing that he had a financial interest in the outcome, Maguire angered senior bureaucrats and ministers by showing up with Raedler-Waterhouse in tow to lobby them. He even gave Raedler-Waterhouse Gladys Berejiklian’s private email address so that she could personally advocate for the Prime Minister, who Raedler-Waterhouse could not have known had a secret relationship with Maguire.
All through September Maguire could be heard telling the Prime Minister that the Badgerys Creek land deal was about to go through.
On Christmas Eve 2017, Raedler-Waterhouse sent Maguire an ebullient email saying: “The people of NSW, myself included, are fortunate to have you representing them.”
Six months later, when Maguire’s shady dealings in earning commissions from real estate deals were made public by the ICAC, Berejiklian issued a statement blaming Maguire for “abandoning the people of New South Wales”.
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The Waterhouses still haven’t sold their land, and Boyuan hasn’t bought the Medich land. Just a month before Maguire’s potentially corrupt dealings came to light at the ICAC, Ron Medich was sentenced to a maximum of 39 years in prison for the 2009 murder of his business partner Michael McGurk.
Boyuan’s option expired and in 2021 the Medich estate was sold for US$499.95 million to an undisclosed private company, Roberts Jones Badgerys Creek, owned by Jonathan Pan and Bo Gong, who had worked at Bouyan.
Just months later, ownership records suggest they had ceded the land to logistics giant DHL, which filed reservations about the ownership rights in November 2021.
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