Senior federal and state Liberal MPs on Tuesday rallied around Berejiklian after revelations she was in a five-year “close personal relationship” with the former Wagga Wagga MP.

Phone intercepts played at ICAC on Monday recounted numerous occasions in 2017 and 2018 in which Mr Maguire – who resigned from NSW parliament in 2018 in connection to a separate ICAC inquiry – discussed his business dealings with  Berejiklian.

Ms Berejiklian on Tuesday struggled to explain why her phone calls with Mr Maguire didn’t constitute knowledge of his business interests or prompt concerns of wrongdoing.

“Unfortunately you take people at face value and trust them,” Berejiklian told reporters.

“This person had been in parliament for 15 years and unfortunately, sometimes people are able to get away with things without a lot of people realising.

“At any stage, if myself or my colleagues ever had a hint that there was any wrongdoing done or any intent to do wrongdoing, of course that would have been reported. As I said yesterday, I trusted someone who didn’t deserve to have my trust.”

Berejiklian declined to discuss the appropriateness of a sitting MP being involved in property deals, saying she didn’t set the rules on the limits of MPs’ business interests.

The ICAC on Monday heard evidence of Maguire’s dealings in relation to a land parcel at Badgerys Creek Airport in western Sydney and a southern NSW dairy outside his Wagga Wagga electorate.

ICAC has accused Maguire of using his public office to improperly gain a benefit for himself or for G8way International, a company he allegedly effectively controlled.

Berejiklian on Monday denied deliberately blinding herself to information about Maguire’s finances and attempts to clear his $1.5 million debt – now under the ICAC spotlight – in order to maintain plausible deniability on the matter.

On one occasion in September 2017 she told Mr Maguire she “didn’t need to know about that” as he discussed a Badgerys Creek Airport deal which would help him to repay his debts.

She told ICAC Maguire was a “big talker” with “pie in the sky” schemes and “a lot of the time I would have ignored or disregarded what he said as fanciful”.

The premier later told reporters she had “stuffed up in her personal life” and had trusted Maguire was doing the right thing and appropriately disclosing his interests.

The pair kept in contact until last month, despite Maguire’s ICAC-prompted resignation.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday nevertheless labelled Berejiklian a “tremendous premier” who “showed a lot of courage” and had his full support.

“We are all human, particularly in those areas of our lives, and Gladys is an extremely private person and a person of momentous integrity,” Morrison told reporters.

Among her NSW colleagues, Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean on Tuesday said Ms Berejiklian was “not the first person to suffer from a poor romantic choice” while Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the Premier was “going nowhere”.

NSW Labor will move a motion of no confidence in the premier in state parliament on Tuesday afternoon that will fail without the support of government MPs.

-AAP