A senior New South Wales public servant tasked with recruiting for a New York trade role awarded to John Barilaro will appear before a parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday to answer further questions about the process after the release of additional documents.
The chief executive of Investment NSW, Amy Brown, told the inquiry in June that she was told to “unwind” a verbal offer of the role to prominent businesswoman after a “government decision” to make the role a ministerial appointment. However that decision was later reversed and a second round of public service recruitment conducted. Brown said she was committed to the core values of the public service and was confident she had fulfilled her duties in relation to Barilaro’s appointment.
At her second appearance before the inquiry, Brown is expected to be asked if she felt pressured to deliver certain outcomes in the recruitment processes that documents suggest recommended two different women before landing on Barilaro for the $500,000-a-year gig.
The deputy leader of the Liberal party, Stuart Ayres, is facing increased scrutiny over his role in the process. Ayres has maintained that Brown had the ultimate responsibility for the decision.
Brown is also expected to be asked why a selection panel report dated 25 March was altered following the second recruitment process that put Barilaro in second place for the job.
The alteration was revealed in documents released on Monday that included an updated report, dated 15 June, which listed Barilaroin first place. He had signed his contract a week earlier on 8 June.
Asked on Monday why Barilaro’s ranking had changed, Ayres said it had been Brown’s decision because she “did not believe” the initial report from the global recruiting firm conducting the search was accurate.
“That’s a decision for her; she made that call,” he said.
Ayres has repeatedly stated that Brown was the ultimate decision-maker in the recruitment process.
Brown declined to respond to the new documents on Monday other than to confirm her appearance at the inquiry.
Ayres said he regretted not discouraging Barilaro from applying for job because it would be “too politically sensitive”.
“I should have told him that even though he’s a private citizen … it was probably not in his best interest or the state’s best interest to apply,” Ayres said.
“Once he did that, though, I think it was important that the public service treated him fairly.”
Ayres said he did not regret texting the job advertisement to Barilaro in December despite him still being a member of parliament at the time.
“I was merely informing him that the ad had been published in the paper,” Ayres said.
Ayres has previously said Barilaro texted him in December to ask about the job. “I made it very clear to him that we were continuing with the existing process [and] I informed him that they would be publicly advertised and he, like any other private citizen, will be able to apply,” he said in June.
The NSW opposition has sought access to those messages and other key materials through parliamentary orders for documents.
By Tuesday, almost 2,500 documents had been produced by the Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade as part of the inquiry. Of those, more than 1,880 have been classified as privileged and cannot be publicly released or used during proceedings.
Labor MP John Graham, who sits on the inquiry, said on Monday that Labor would reserve the right to recall Brown for a third day once all requested documents have been released. That could be as early as Monday, he said.
The premier, Dominic Perrottet, has repeatedly said he will not respond to the allegations raised in the inquiry until the findings of a separate, independent inquiry by the former public service commissioner Graeme Head has been handed down.
Barilaro walked away from the role less than two weeks after his appointment was announced in June, saying it had become untenable and a “distraction” due to media attention. He has said that he “always maintained that I followed the process”.
