James O’Doherty: Barilaro New York appointment could haunt Government at state election

The Barilaro New York trade appointment could very well haunt the Perrottet government come election time next year, writes James O’Doherty.

On Monday morning, Dominic Perrottet was belting out the chart-topping 1980s classic Livin’ On A Prayer over Sydney’s FM radio airwaves.

The spirited karaoke performance was fitting for a Premier who is seemingly trying to ride out the scandal surrounding John Barilaro’s appointment to a lucrative New York trade role by praying it all goes away.

That same morning, credentialed former public servant Jenny West was the headline act at a parliamentary inquiry probing how Barilaro got the gig.

After being told she was the “successful candidate” and beginning to make plans to move, the role was ripped out from under her.

As West recalls, her then boss Amy Brown said the job was instead going to be a “present for someone”.

Jenny West gives evidence before a parliamentary committee at State Parliament.

Months after that claim, which was recounted in West’s contemporaneous notes, Barilaro was given the lofty-titled role of ‘Special Trade and Investment Commissioner to the Americas’.

On face value, it appears like a textbook case of “jobs for mates” politics.

The government denies this, arguing the appointment was handled independently, with Brown, Investment NSW boss, as the final decision maker.

But it is the court of public opinion that counts.

Despairing government ministers liken the appointment to a series of political missteps in the dying days of the government led by Nick Greiner, and later John Fahey, in the early 1990s.

One appointment in particular lives on in the corporate memories of Liberal politicians — the 1991 appointment of former minister Neil Pickard as NSW’s Agent-General in London.

Pickard was given the plum job just months before voters went to the polls.

In media clippings from the time, Greiner even admitted the appointment was a “jobs for the boys” situation, made to compensate Pickard for losing his seat of Hornsby in a redistribution.

“It looked like arrogance, it looked like he was taking his re-election for granted,” then opposition leader Bob Carr recalled to this column.

The Coalition hung on in 1991 but the scandal didn’t go away. The ill-fated appointment was a central plank of Carr’s attack on the Coalition four years later, when Labor won office in 1995.

The Perrottet government, already in minority, won’t be able to lose any seats if it is to hold on next year.

Multiple current ministers see striking similarities between the Pickard appointment and Barilaro’s job.

Amy Brown, Secretary, Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade, and Chief Executive Officer, Investment NSW during the inquiry into the appointment of John Barilaro.

Carr campaigned hard against Pickard’s appointment, much like his contemporary Chris Minns is now.

Carr has taken a keen interest in the current scandal, texting Labor MPs to urge them on.

Both appointments also caused internal unrest in government ranks.

Privately, ministers are seething that Barilaro was appointed without being ticked off by cabinet.

The irony is that if that had happened, Barilaro would never have got the trade role in the first place.

Enough people sitting around that table would have realised what a bad look it would be to appoint the former deputy premier to a lucrative job that we probably don’t need anyway.

Instead, Barilaro was selected in a recruitment process led by the public service.

Perrottet did not step in to stop Barilaro getting the job, later telling parliament he was prevented under legislation from doing so.

Then NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro (left) and Dominic Perrottet

But the fact he allowed the appointment to go ahead points to a tired government, asleep at the wheel, blind to concerns the public would rightly have about jobs being doled out to Coalition mates.

Government ministers maintain they had no power to intervene. But they can’t pretend it doesn’t look bad.

There are still questions about why the trade role was ultimately left up to the public service, rather than becoming a political appointment.

This was what West recalled being told by her then-boss Amy Brown, in October last year: “I have spoken to minister Ayres who has taken over the deputy premier’s portfolio and he has confirmed you will not be getting the America’s role. It will be a “present for someone’.”

Ayres categorically rejects he “exerted political influence” over the process.

“I did not say the job was to be a ‘present’ for anyone and I find that idea to be offensive,” he said in a statement this week.

Minister for Enterprise, Investment and Trade Stuart Ayres

West presented as a model public servant at this week’s parliamentary inquiry. She was scrupulous and well-spoken and undeniably credentialed.

She was clearly considered good enough for the New York trade role because she had been identified as the “successful candidate” before the job offer was pulled.

The argument against West’s appointment is that these trade roles should not be doled out by (and to) the public service but given to candidates who will cut through red tape and break down doors for the state’s benefit.

One Liberal even told this column Barilaro would have been an “ideal candidate” for the New York trade role as someone who could sell NSW to the world.

But it was the way the appointment was made that had created problems for the government.

When Barilaro withdrew from the New York trade role he said the appointment would “continue to be a distraction” but maintained he always followed proper processes. A review ordered by Perrottet into the circumstances around Barilaro’s appointment is due to report back in weeks.

Until then he will be living on prayers that the government has weathered the worst of the scandal.

If it gets worse, a more appropriate karaoke hit for his next FM radio appearance may well be the Propellerheads’ ‘History Repeating’.