If she had her time again, Gladys Berejiklian would still not disclose her secret relationship with disgraced former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.
Appearing before the corruption inquiry that forced her to resign as NSW premier on 1 October, Ms Berejiklian on Friday had the opportunity to address the allegations against her.
The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption is investigating how that secret relationship may have affected the way Ms Berejiklian - as treasurer and later premier - dealt with projects lobbied for by the former member for Wagga Wagga.
Ms Berejiklian was played several phone calls during which she discussed some of those projects with Mr Maguire.
In one, she can be heard saying "I just got you $170 million in five minutes", for a hospital in Mr Maguire's region.
"You can't have me fixing all your problems all the time," she said.
Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian (right) and former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire (left). Source: AAP
"(But) I just spoke to Dom and ... he goes, 'No worries'. He just does what I ask him to," Ms Berejiklian said of then-treasurer Dominic Perrottet, her successor as premier.
Mr Maguire on Thursday conceded the couple's relationship gave him greater access to Ms Berejiklian than other MPs.
He denied he ever explicitly asked Ms Berejiklian to intervene in projects he lobbied for, but conceded he would sometimes communicate with her in the hope she would.
Mr Maguire was the one originally under the microscope of the ICAC last year for allegedly using his position as an MP to gain a financial benefit for himself.
Ms Berejiklian says she had no clue Mr Maguire was doing anything "untoward", and says he did not get any preferential treatment from her.
"All of my colleagues had equal access to me," she told the inquiry.
The public hearing has focused on two grants for which Mr Maguire lobbied for: a $5.5 million upgrade to the Wagga Wagga Clay Target Club and a $20.5 million plan to build a recital hall for the Riverina Conservatorium of Music.
Neither faced a competitive tender process and were both at times opposed by senior public servants.
Ms Berejiklian told the inquiry she supported the shooting club grant not because of Mr Maguire, but primarily because she thought it would improve the government's standing in the bush after a damaging by-election loss.
The conservatorium won her favour because she felt it had been messed around by the public service.
It had, on advice from bureaucrats, spent "considerable time and money" putting together a proposal to go through a funding process in which it had no hope of succeeding.
"That made me feel very upset because it also fit into the narrative that we weren't taking care of communities in the regions," she said.
Even in hindsight, Ms Berejiklian said she would have kept her relationship with Mr Maguire secret.
She respected but disagreed with witnesses - including former premier and friend Mike Baird - who said she should have declared it.
"They're entitled to their opinion, but it is just that," Ms Berejiklian said.
"I didn't feel it was of sufficient standing."
That is despite Ms Berejiklian agreeing with the way Mr Maguire characterised their relationship while giving his evidence on Thursday.
He said the pair loved each other, contemplated marriage and discussed having a child.
"I had those feelings but I was never assured of a level of commitment which, in my mind, would have required me to introduce him to my parents or introduce him to my sisters," she said.
She was shown a message, sent to Mr Maguire in April 2018, calling him her "family".
Gladys Berejiklian (centre) and Daryl Maguire (right) in 2015. Source: Barry O'Farrell/Twitter
"I regarded him as part of my love circle - part of the people that I strongly cared for - but I wouldn't have put him in the same category as my parents or my sisters," she said.
Why did she disclose other relationships or friendships, but not this one, Mr Robertson asked.
"I'm still trying to understand how you draw a distinction between making declarations in relation to people who you know - there's one declaration for example, where you said I know this person because of attendance at functions - but not in respect of someone who ... you loved," he said.
