Labor says it will impose a two-year pay freeze on NSW senior executive public servants and redirect savings to essential services, as a month-long search for the premier's brother comes to an end.
Premier Dominic Perrottet's younger brother, Jean-Claude Perrottet, has been the subject of an international search for a month, as a parliamentary inquiry sought to call him for questioning about allegations of misconduct on the Hills Shire Council.
The inquiry engaged professional process servers in a failed bid to locate missing witnesses, including the premier's brother.
However, Nine News published a photo of Jean-Claude on Tuesday, saying their journalists had found him in Sydney.
The upper house inquiry concluded last week as the NSW parliament entered caretaker mode ahead of the March 25 election.
It found various witnesses, including Jean-Claude, had stifled its investigation by refusing to appear and give evidence.
Meanwhile, Labor Leader Chris Minns says a wage freeze on senior government executives, along with a 15 per cent reduction on senior public servant positions, would enable him to invest a further $500 million into essential services.
"I want every dollar available to go into fixing our schools and our hospitals and paying our paramedics, teachers, nurses, police officers and other frontline staff that we so desperately need," he said on Tuesday.
"That's why I'm committing to a two year pay freeze on politicians pay and we'll cut the excessive spending on senior bureaucrats."
Under the coalition government NSW senior executive public servant positions had grown almost three times faster than the number of nurses, he said.
The annual wages bill for senior executives across NSW government agencies, departments and state-owned corporations was around $1 billion a year, and many top bureaucrats now earned in excess of $600,000 - nearly six times the wage of the average nurse, he said.
There were more than 3600 senior executives across the NSW government, earning on average $272,000, a 34 per cent blowout since the last term of government, Mr Minns said.
The election promise comes just a day before nominations close for candidates in the election, with the Liberal Party yet to finalise candidates in several seats.
Meanwhile, former minister Stuart Ayres could return to the frontbench after being cleared of corrupt dealings by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
The ICAC on Monday delivered its finding in an inquiry into the appointment of former deputy premier John Barilaro to a plum US trade role.
"The investigation did not identify any evidence of corrupt conduct," it said.
Mr Ayres resigned from cabinet last year and now is fighting to retain his western Sydney seat of Penrith, which he holds with a margin of just 0.6 per cent.
