The woman first offered the New York trade commissioner job that eventually went to former New South Wales deputy premier John Barilaro has told a parliamentary probe into the appointment that she was told the position would instead be “a present for someone”.
On Monday the former senior public servant and businesswoman Jenny West told an upper house inquiry into Barilaro’s appointment she received a brief signed by former premier Gladys Berejiklian noting her appointment to the $500,000-a-year posting on 12 August last year.
She received the brief in a text message from the chief executive of Investment NSW, Amy Brown, who told her: “This is one to frame.” The message contained emojis of a champagne bottle and the Statue of Liberty.
But despite receiving both the brief and a verbal offer from Brown, the offer was later rescinded, West said.
On Monday, the former Investment NSW deputy secretary told an inquiry examining Barilaro’s appointment that on the same day Brown informed her the New York job was no longer hers because of a ministerial decision to instead make it a “political appointment”, she was also told she would be made redundant.
“In the space of four weeks I went from having been appointed to the role of [trade commissioner] to the Americas to potentially not having a job,” West told the upper house inquiry.
After being offered the job on 12 August, West told the inquiry that on 16 September Brown told her “a submission was going to cabinet” that would make the six trade roles “political appointments and not public sector appointments”.
West presented her notes from the conversation to the inquiry that stated Brown told her that it was the “DP” – Barilaro – who had taken the submission to cabinet.
At the same time, West said, she was told by Brown that her current position could also be made redundant.
West told the inquiry she had a meeting with Brown on 14 October in which she was told she would not be getting the job.
“Ms Brown said the position, and this is a quote, ‘will be a present for someone’,” West said.
“She added, and I again quote, ‘you are an extraordinary performer and I am upset this has happened’.
“At the time I was just surprised at the turn of phrase, so I noted it down.
“I thought the process was unusual because it was a proper public sector process – [and] I went for a job, I applied for it, I got offered it – and then to have that role withdrawn [and] be told it was going to be a political appointment. I couldn’t get my head around that.”
West said Brown told her of the decision to withdraw the offer after meeting with Stuart Ayres, who had replaced Barilaro as the minister for trade following the announcement of his resignation from parliament in early October.
The Guardian last month revealed that West had been offered the position that ultimately went to Barilaro 10 months later.
In her evidence, West described negotiating her contract for the role, and looking for places to live.
“I was so excited about the appointment,” she told the inquiry. “I immediately shared the news with my family and friends, they were so happy for me. I began taking steps to relocate and had engaged a relocation company.
“I looked at rental accommodation in New York and looked at colleges for my family.”
Brown previously told the inquiry that when Ayres later decided not to make the position a ministerial appointment after all, she didn’t reoffer the role to West because West’s relationship with the department had become “irreconcilable” when the job offer was retracted. In confidential evidence leaked to media, Brown also raised discrepancies in West’s resume.
West rejected this account, describing Brown’s evidence about the breakdown of their relationship as “very untrue”.
“I was very shocked and upset [by the evidence],” West said.
“I’ve worked exceptionally hard for my career [and] I was quite horrified by what she had said because it is so different from who I am.”
Brown previously told the inquiry that while West had been given a “verbal offer” there had been no “formal” job offer.
“[West] was verbally offered the role and then I was given a direction by government to cease the recruitment due to a change in government policy to convert the roles into statutory officers appointed by a minister,” Brown told the inquiry last month.
She said Barilaro emerged as the best candidate in a second round of recruitments after the government decided not to proceed with a ministerial appointment, and was confident the process had been conducted properly.
But West told the inquiry that after negotiating her contract, being verbally offered the role and then being sent the signed brief from Berejiklian, she believed it had been a formal offer.
“I was so excited about the appointment,” she said.
Labor leader Chris Minns called West’s evidence “extraordinary”.
“It’s clear that Jenny West has been treated appallingly by the NSW Government,” he said.
Barilaro last month withdrew from the role, saying the high degree of media attention was a distraction that had made it untenable for him to continue.
“I have always maintained that I followed the process and look forward to the results of the review,” he said at the time.
