A member of an interview panel that selected John Barilaro for a lucrative New York trade job has told an inquiry she wouldn’t have signed off on his hiring if she “knew then what I know now” about the involvement of senior government figures in the recruitment process.
The New South Wales public service commissioner, Kathrina Lo, gave evidence that she didn’t know about “the number and nature” of interactions between now resigned minister Stuart Ayres and the head of Investment NSW, Amy Brown, during the recruitment process.
“Had I known on 15 June what I know now I would not have endorsed the report,” she told a parliamentary inquiry investigating the appointment on Friday.
Lo told the inquiry she had not known that Ayres had input into the candidate shortlist, first revealed by the Guardian, or that he acted as an “informal reference” for Barilaro.
Lo said she was unaware that Ayres had met with Kimberly Cole, an award-winning businesswoman initially ranked higher than Barilaro in the second round of recruitment.
She told the inquiry she was denied “relevant information” about the hiring process.
“As public service commissioner I should not be viewed as cover for a recruitment process or as a way for other panel members or the hiring agencies to avoid accountability,” she said.
She said another independent panel member, Warwick Smith, had asked her to “put on the record [that had] he known then what he knows now he also would not have endorsed the report”.
Lo raised concerns about the “problematic” treatment of another candidate for the job, Rob Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick applied for the job in the first round of recruitment, and was deemed suitable but ran second to the initial choice, Jenny West.
Lo, who was not on the selection panel in the first round, said she was told by Brown that rather than re-interview Fitzpatrick his report would be carried over into the second recruitment drive.
She told the inquiry she learned that some of it had been “edited to make it more negative”.
“With the benefit of hindsight I should have asked to see the first panel report and I deeply regret not doing so and I’ve learned a hard lesson here,” she said.
“I assumed incorrectly that the second report reflected Mr Fitzpatrick’s assessment in the first round and yes I should’ve asked or verified that.”
The inquiry previously heard that an initial report from the four-person interview panel ranked Cole higher than Barilaro.
Three of the four panel members have said the report was not accurate, and that the two candidates were tied.
Lo said she never saw the first report, and only received the second one on 15 June, when she was asked to sign off on it, six days after Barilaro had signed his contract.
“I wasn’t aware that an offer had been made when I received this and I wasn’t aware Mr Barilaro [had already signed a] contract,” Lo said.
She said she had been happy to sign off on Barilaro as the top-ranked candidate at the time.
“I now am aware of things I wasn’t aware of at the time and if I was aware of those things at the time there may have been a different conversation among the panel members,” she said.
Kylie Bell, a senior Investment NSW employee who was also on the recruitment panel, defended the decision to hire Barilaro at the inquiry on Friday.
“He knows the businesses, he knows the industry groups,” she said. “If he was in New York for us, he would be able to pick up the phone and talk to business leaders and get things happening.”
Barilaro withdrew from the role within two weeks of the announcement 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”.
