Businessman Greg Maguire has rarely failed to stay out of the headlines for long, whether as a benefactor and driver for such projects as the Tamworth entertainment centre and the equine centre at the Longyard, or a power player in politics and business. And like he has in the past, the high profile owner of the Power House boutique hotels in Tamworth and Armidale has been involved in some explosive allegations and stories, for different reasons. This week, an exclusive investigation by Fairfax Media journalists Sean Nicholls and Kate McClymont has reported Mr Maguire has now been sensationally linked to the failed bid by Richard Torbay for The Nationals candidacy to contest the election battle for New England and a seemingly spectacular fall from grace from public life. While we tried yesterday, Mr Maguire did not answer or return The Leader’s calls. Mr Torbay has been spotted a number of times by locals since March 19, again fleetingly on Tuesday at a flight centre in Armidale. He has shunned media approaches and told them he can’t comment because of legal reasons.
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RICHARD Torbay’s failed campaign to topple the federal independent MP Tony Windsor was being backed by a wealthy Tamworth businessman once accused of trying to bribe Mr Windsor to leave politics.
Within hours of dining with the businessman, Greg Maguire, at his Armidale hotel, the Powerhouse, on March 18, Mr Torbay made the phone call that would end his political career.
Mr Torbay phoned the state director of the NSW Nationals, Ben Franklin, to tell him he had something urgent to discuss, after which he flew to Sydney.
That night, he and Mr Franklin had dinner at a restaurant in Randwick, where Mr Torbay confessed to information that Mr Franklin felt was so serious that The Nationals referred it to corruption authorities and dumped Mr Torbay as their candidate for the seat of New England.
Mr Maguire told Fairfax Media that Mr Torbay offered no clue about what he was about to do only hours after they had a meal together.
They discussed the progress of Mr Torbay’s campaign to dislodge Mr Windsor at the federal election in September.
“We were catching up as mates,” Mr Maguire said.
“He was very confident that things were going very well. I had no indication whatsoever.”
Mr Maguire said he had known Mr Torbay, who was the independent state MP for Northern Tablelands, since he was young.
He and other local businessmen had thrown their support behind Mr Torbay’s New England campaign.
“Richard was not known at all in Tamworth,” Mr Maguire said.
“Our job was to introduce him to the business community, hold the normal business lunches – no different to anyone else.
“We would have helped him financially but we never got there, did we? He disappeared.”
Mr Torbay has disappeared from public life since his surprise resignation as MP for Northern Tablelands and chancellor of the University of New England soon after The Nationals dumped him.
Since then, the Independent Commission Against Corruption has raided his Armidale home after the referral of the information, which is understood to relate to Labor Party funding of Mr Torbay’s campaigns.
Rumours have circulated in the New England district that Mr Torbay has been staying at Mr Maguire’s retreat on Hamilton Island. But Mr Maguire said he had had no contact with Mr Torbay and denied he had stayed at any of his properties.
It is not the first time rumours have circulated about Mr Maguire, a successful but polarising figure in the Armidale area.
Mr Maguire once took out an advertisement in The Armidale Express threatening to sue those repeating malicious gossip that he was a drug dealer.
The “public notice” in May 1977, paid for by Mr Maguire, said rumours “circulating regarding certain charges allegedly laid against me by the police are completely untrue and unfounded”.
Mr Maguire threatened legal action if he learnt who was circulating the rumours.
The ad was accompanied by a front-page editorial headed: “Watch what you say”, warning that anyone caught “spreading unfounded gossip” about Mr Maguire could be ordered to pay “many thousands of dollars in damages”.
Mr Maguire was asked about this unusual recourse during a grilling in the Senate in 2004. “There was a rumour around Armidale that some people had been caught with drugs on a sailboat,” he said.
“For some reason the rumour was attached to my name. It went right through the area. The press picked it up and off it went. The bottom line is I have never been involved in drugs”.
The Senate inquiry was held after Mr Maguire was accused of trying to bribe Mr Windsor to leave federal politics on behalf of then deputy prime minister John Anderson.
Mr Windsor made the claim in Parliament and said Mr Maguire, on behalf of Mr Anderson, had offered him an overseas posting if he agreed not to recontest New England.
The claims led to an investigation by the federal police. Mr Windsor’s version of events was backed up by two of his campaign managers, Stephen Hall and Helen Tickle, who were at the meeting, but Mr Anderson strongly denied the claims.
Mr Maguire also denied them before the Senate inquiry, which cleared Mr Anderson of any wrongdoing.
The federal police said they would not lay charges against Mr Maguire after being advised by the Director of Public Prosecutions the evidence was insufficient.
But the Senate inquiry criticised Mr Maguire’s refusal to provide records of political donations he claimed on oath to have made to Mr Windsor’s campaigns.
Mr Maguire told the inquiry that his companies had “made substantial financial contributions to his campaigns over the years”.
But he did not respond to three requests from the committee to produce the documentation. In referring the matter to the privileges committee, the inquiry chairman, Michael Forshaw, said there was “a prima facie case that Mr Maguire knowingly gave false and misleading evidence”.
Mr Maguire said that while he was close to Mr Torbay, he was never in business with him.
“I think I bought a couple of hamburgers off his mum and dad when they had a take-way shop,” he said.
