A senior official inside Investment New South Wales urged colleagues to keep records of all documents relating to the appointment of the former Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright to a lucrative London trade job because she said it would “come under scrutiny no doubt”.
New documents released to parliament show that, in the lead up to the announcement of Cartwright as the government’s senior London trade commissioner, public servants inside Investment NSW raised concerns about record keeping in case “someone needs to review what happened”.
“Do we have a folder with all of Stephen’s recruitment documentation and internal briefs that we can put with it?,” the senior public servant Kylie Bell wrote in September last year.
“So that in five years’ time, when we are all long gone, if someone needs to review what happened they can find it all in one place.
“At some point they will come under scrutiny no doubt and someone else will have to unpick / interpret our decision making.”
Details behind Cartwright’s appointment have been the subject of increased scrutiny since the head of Investment NSW, Amy Brown, made a series of revelations to the parliamentary inquiry probing the controversial trade roles.
Brown has previously told the inquiry that Cartwright was added to the hiring process for the position “late”, after another preferred candidate had already been identified, and that he seemed to believe he had an “elevated status” during a protracted contract negotiation that saw him threaten to “go to” either the premier, Dominic Perrottet, or then deputy premier John Barilaro.
It comes as the long-awaited report by the former public service commissioner Graeme Head into the appointment of Barilaro to the equivalent New York role raised a series of issues with the process behind that appointment.
Released on Tuesday, the Head report found Brown had not acted “fully in keeping” with the Code of Ethics and Conduct – under which public servants are bound – due to a series of interactions with the now former deputy Liberal party leader Stuart Ayres during the hiring process.
He also found the process did “not occur at arm’s length” from Ayres.
While Perrottet said on Tuesday that the hiring process in filling the trade roles had been “flawed”, he said Cartwright and the other trade commissioners had “applied for their roles in good faith”.
“The fundamental issue here is not on any of the trade commissioners, it’s not on any of the applicants. The fundamental issue here is the flawed recruitment process that has taken place,” he said. “That’s not their fault.”
Perrottet, who was the treasurer when Cartwright was appointed, said he had been “kept updated” about the job but did not recall being told about a previous preferred candidate for the role.
“John Barilaro was the trade minister at the time and he kept me up to date in relation to applications or what have you [but] that was not a process I was driving,” he said.
Brown has also detailed to the inquiry what she described as “difficult” negotiations over the London contract – including his “eye watering” expectation for a salary of about $800,000 – and the new documents also shed light on the difficulty striking a deal.
In one exchange, a public servant inside the agency describes Jenny West, who was later verbally offered the New York trade posting but who at that time was in charge of Cartwright’s appointment, being in “a real tizz” after a call with him.
“She’s called me a couple of times today but on the last call was in a real tizz and kind of hung up on me, but only because she was so upset from a call with Stephen C,” the official wrote on 18 June.
Cartwright has previously referred questions about his appointment to Investment NSW.
