Dominic Perrottet names new top bureaucrat, rejects Gladys Berejiklian’s choice
Premier Dominic Perrottet has appointed Michael Coutts-Trotter, husband of federal Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek, as the top NSW bureaucrat.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, a conservative Liberal, has appointed Michael Coutts-Trotter, the husband of federal Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek, as the state’s top bureaucrat, the secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Mr Coutts-Trotter, who has been married to Ms Plibersek, for two decades, has most recently been the Justice Department secretary and prior to that headed the Education Department.
Mr Coutts-Trotter’s appointment came as Mr Perrottet moved to stamp his authority on the government, on Thursday announcing the easing of Covid-19 restrictions without the presence of chief health officer Kerry Chant, who accompanied former premier Gladys Berejiklian at most Covid-19 press conferences.
The decision to appoint Mr Coutts-Trotter meant the axing of Ms Berejiklian’s appointee, Jim Betts, before he had even begun.
Mr Betts, the current Department of Planning secretary, was to begin the role later in October following the resignation of Tim Reardon, who resigned in June and plans to return to the private sector.
Mr Betts is still expected to be replaced as the most senior Planning Department bureaucrat by Kiersten Fishburn, a long-time public servant who has recently headed the Office of Local Government.
Mr Coutts-Trotter, an only child, moved from Britain to Australia with his parents at age 11. Just months after the family’s arrival, his father died of cancer.
Mr Coutts-Trotter was educated at a boys’ private school in Sydney’s lower north shore, St Ignatius College Riverview. During his time there, he began self-medicating, binge-drinking and taking recreational drugs.
In 1986, at age 19, he was convicted over the importation of heroin and sentenced to nine years in prison. When he was ¬arrested, Mr Coutts-Trotter, who is 193cm tall, weighed only 50kg.
He served two years and nine months at Long Bay Prison – much of it in maximum security – before leaving to undergo rehab at the Miracle Haven ¬centre on the NSW central coast.
Mr Perrottet said Mr Betts understood the “change in direction” and he had led significant change in his current role and at Transport for NSW.
But in an email on Thursday, Mr Betts told staff while he made no complaint about the decision, he wouldn’t “conceal the reality of my termination behind weasel words”.
“I got fired,” he wrote. “Not an uncommon experience for public servants these days, and something many others have suffered in the last year or two.”
Mr Betts said he had “promised myself I would never again fall in love with my department” after he left the Victorian Public Service in 2013.
“Epic fail on that count, I’m afraid,” he wrote.
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