Dominic Perrottet is in deep trouble, in a debacle almost entirely of his own making.
More than six weeks after it began, the rolling fiasco of the Barilaro affair claimed its first scalp on Wednesday, with the resignation of trade minister Stuart Ayres.
The Premier’s own survival seems likely in the short term at least – if only for want of a willing challenger.
On Wednesday, he was forced to admit what was obvious to everyone in the state for weeks: giving a plum New York trade post to former deputy premier John Barilaro was not done at arm’s length.
In reality, the Barilaro scandal has Ayres’ fingerprints all over it. And some of Perrottet’s, too.
Not that he was conceding that much. In an excruciating press conference, the caught-in-the-headlights Premier claimed to have acted both swiftly and transparently in axing Ayres.
Neither was true.
Perrottet has behaved more like a hapless bystander at every turn of events in this saga, and in others that preceded it.
Cabinet colleagues are exasperated by his long, often fumbled press conferences and a perceived preference for instigating inquiries rather than making decisions.
Evidence that Ayres intervened to help lever his then ministerial colleague into the $500,000-a-year job has trickled out from the parliamentary inquiry set up to examine it, slowed only by the government’s repeated failure to deliver crucial documents – another own-goal that has handed the partisan inquiry a chance to prolong the headlines.
Perrottet insisted “no suitable candidate” was found for the New York post last year from a first recruitment round, even though senior public servant Jenny West was confirmed as the “successful candidate” only to have the offer rescinded two months later.
The Premier has denied knowledge of the appointment process and was ultimately forced to appoint former public service commissioner Graeme Head to find answers, with a promise to release the results as soon as they became available.
After reading a draft of the report on Tuesday, he decided to keep the findings to himself.
Ayres was dumped because he “might” have breached the ministerial code of conduct, but what he’d done to warrant that suspicion can’t be revealed … pending another inquiry.
All we’re allowed to know now is that Head found there was an issue with “the engagement of Mr Ayres with a department secretary in respect to the recruitment process”.
We didn’t need Head to tell us that.
Less than an hour after Perrottet’s train-wreck of a press conference, department secretary Amy Brown was back before the parliamentary inquiry acknowledging Ayres had not kept himself at arm’s length from the process.
Indeed, there were “multiple intersection points” with Ayres throughout the process, Brown said, while gamely continuing to insist she still felt the decision to hire Barilaro was entirely her own.
Firing Ayres does not fix the Premier’s problems. As treasurer, Perrottet sat at the cabinet table when Barilaro successfully argued the selection process should switch from a public service to a ministerial appointment.
As Premier, he was party to discussions when Ayres, as the then new trade minister, switched it back to a public service appointment.
ICAC is already considering its own investigation into the affair, and if it follows through, the inquiry would likely still be running in March next year when the government goes to the voters.
That election will be fought on bread-and-butter issues, not on the Barilaro affair.
But Perrottet faces an uphill battle, having replaced a popular premier in Gladys Berejiklian and forced to deal with mounting Covid and cost-of-living issues without the federal support she enjoyed.
Now he’s facing a war with the NRL after reneging on a promise to revamp suburban football stadiums. Losing the NRL Grand Final to Queensland would not be a good look, no matter how plausible his explanation the money would be better spent on flood victims.
Understandably, the only likely challengers to his leadership – Rob Stokes and Matt Kean – are keeping their heads down.
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