John Barilaro job saga will ‘deter women’, Amy Brown warns inquiry into NY trade job, inquiry told
“Nervous” to give John Barilaro a plum job, Investment NSW head Amy Brown says she did not believe Stuart Ayres was at “arm’s length” from the hiring process.
NSW
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Stuart Ayres said John Barilaro “would have some positive attributes” for the New York trade role, Investment NSW chief Amy Brown said as she admitted to an inquiry she was “nervous” about hiring him for the job.
Ms Brown revealed that Mr Ayres’s comments favouring Mr Barilaro indicated he was acting as an “informal referee” for his former cabinet colleague.
She said it was common for employers to check in with informal referees for candidates and Mr Ayres’s comments indicated he was an “informal referee”.
“It’s not unusual when you have candidates who have a lot of business and other careers … (to check in) or to get unsolicited calls from people wishing to endorse them,” she said.
“(He said) If a trade minister can’t represent NSW for trade, who can?”
Ms Brown also sensationally told the inquiry she did not believe former minster Ayres was at “arm’s length” of the process to hire Mr Barilaro, despite Mr Ayres repeatedly claiming he was.
“In my view he was not at arm’s length of the process, there were multiple intersection points,” she said.
Ms Brown said it was “disheartening” that Ms West was not deemed by the government as the suitable candidate.
She said she was under the impression that the then deputy premier, Mr Barilaro, was not pleased that a public servant was chosen for such a “senior role”.
“I got the impression from the deputy premier’s office that part of the motivation for (the role) going to cabinet to change the whole regime was there was a little bit of disappointment or distaste around the fact that a bureaucrat had been given such a high profile role,” she said.
She said Mr Ayres said Jenny West “wouldn’t be suitable”.
Ms Brown said she was aware Mr Ayres had texted Mr Barilaro about the trade commissioner role.
“I remember getting an early heads up. It was almost in a jovial way, like ‘You’ll never know who I just got a phone call from — Mr John Barilaro — he’s interested in the job’,” she said.
Ms Brown said she then had a “further” conversation with Mr Ayres about Mr Barilaro’s interest in the job.
AYRES RESIGNATION
The evidence comes after Mr Ayres resigned from his portfolios and as Deputy Leader of the Liberals on Wednesday,following a confrontation from Premier Dominic Perrottet.
Mr Perrottet said an extract from a draft review into the saga indicated Mr Ayres did not act at “arm’s length” during the hiring process and raised concerns about whether he influenced Ms Brown‘s decision making.
She said Mr Ayres spoke favourably of Mr Barilaro during a meeting between the two a day after applications closed — and while the verdict was still out on whether the roles would be ministerial or public service appointments.
She added that Mr Ayres said Mr Barilaro “would have … some positive attributes”.
She recalled Mr Ayres saying: “Given he (Mr Barilaro) had been the Trade Minister, I would suspect he would have relevant experience to represent the NSW government‘s interests internationally on matters of trade,” she said.
“It was more of a back and forth conversation and he said, ‘I think he could be quite good’.”
No other candidates had been discussed at that meeting.
Ms Brown said Mr Ayres’s comment carried “some weight” in her decision making.
She added that she did not know who told Mr Barilaro he was hired for the job.
Despite being the hiring manager, she was not the one to tell him he had the job. She said she does not know if Mr Ayres told him.
BARILARO SAGA WILL DETER WOMEN JOINING PUBLIC SERVICE
High-performing women will be deterred from applying for jobs in the NSW public service, Ms Brown said during her evidence.
The Investment NSW boss said she was pushing for the $500,000 a year trade role to go to a female candidate.
“I’m worried about how this process looks more broadly … That combined with this amount of public scrutiny will deter high performing talent including women from ever applying for public service roles,” she said.
“I did talk to the Minister about the fact that the first four appointments were male. I was really pushing … for a female to be the preferred candidate.”
The comments come after the inquiry heard that the other preferred candidate — Kimberley Cole — was given just 12 minutes to pitch herself to Mr Ayres over video conferencing before he decided he didn’t have “confidence” in her for the job.
‘NERVOUS’ TO HIRE BARILARO
Ms Brown called the state’s senior-most public servant and asked him to speak to the Premier Dominic Perrottet about the decision to hire Mr Barilaro.
She was “nervous” about Mr Barilaro’s appointment to the high-profile role and anticipated media scrutiny to follow.
“I was nervous because he had some history with the NSW government (which) may make it difficult for you to take up the role,” she said.
Ms Brown contacted Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter.
“I said something along the lines of ‘Mr Barilaro is the successful candidate from the recruitment process, I’m nervous about it, I wonder if you want to check in with the Premier’,” she said.
“I was concerned about appointing Mr Barilaro.”
She felt Mr Coutts-Trotter was “resigned” to the decision to hire Mr Barilaro after she raised her concerns.
Ms Brown has maintained it was her decision to add an unnamed candidate to the “short short list” of candidates despite revealing that she had hesitations about the person that were overruled by Mr Ayres.
Ms Brown said she showed Mr Ayres the list of candidates on her phone and he raised an addition — someone who Ms Brown was hesitant on because they left their last role in controversial circumstances — but Mr Ayres told her she was being “overcautious or oversensitive”.
She then added the name to the list.
AYRES ASKED FOR ROLE BE LEFT VACANT
Mr Ayres wanted the trade commissioner roles for India and Singapore to be filled but asked Ms Brown to leave the New York role “vacant”, new documents reveal.
He said it would be “sensible”, she said.
In an internal email on October 12 2021, Ms Brown told her staff that “the Minister would like the NY post be left vacant for now”.
She said her decision on the role took into account Minister Stuart‘s preferences and views.
The email detailed six points based on Mr Ayres‘s various opinions on the trade role appointments.
Ms Brown “never saw a written decision” reverting trade roles from Ministerial decisions back to public sector appointments.
Mr Ayres has previously said that cabinet agreed to revert the roles back to public sector appointments.
Ms Brown blamed recruiter NGS Global for “a number of errors” in the recruitment for the New York trade commissioner role.
Her explanations come after documents tabled to parliament showed that an initial panel report was updated with a new one that had boosted Mr Barilaro’s performance in the interview.
“There are a number of errors with respect to this recruitment process conducted by NGS Global,” she said.
“It did not reflect the content of the discussions … and the ratings that NGS had included in the report did not actually reflect the capability of the candidates.”
Ms Brown said the report was “so inaccurate” and that the panel believed a female candidate who was noted as rating highly — understood to be Kimberley Cole — would have a ”steep learning curve” in the job because she had not worked in government before and lived outside of NSW for 10 years.
She said she did not speak to other members of the panel about her concerns before asking NGS Global to “sharpen up the report in terms of its accuracy”.
Ms Brown said that she and her departmental colleagues were “disillusioned” by the decision to convert the trade commissioner roles to ministerial appointments. Ms Brown hit out at her former colleague Jenny West and said her decision to make file notes of their conversations left “a taste in her mouth”
The file notes have formed the basis of several attacks on the government‘s decision making by NSW Labor.
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