‘Best candidate’: senior minister Stuart Ayres ‘approved’ West for NY job which eventually went to Barilaro

Documents signed by Stuart Ayres appear to contradict Premier’s claim Barilaro chosen for plum job after no suitable candidate was found.

NSW Minister for Enterprise, Investment and Trade, Minister for Tourism and Sport, and Minister for Western Sydney, Stuart Ayres. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

A senior minister in the NSW government “approved” the pending appointment of senior public servant Jenny West as the “successful candidate identified” for a $500,000 New York trade commissioner job last year that was later handed to former deputy premier John Barilaro.

Government documents released on Thursday appear to contradict the claim by Premier Dominic Perrottet in parliament that Mr Barilaro was chosen for the plum job after no suitable ­candidate had been found.

The documents, released through the NSW parliament at the request of the opposition, show the then minister for jobs, investment and tourism Stuart Ayres received a written “minister brief” from Investment NSW on August 16 last year which said a “full recruitment process” had been conducted and chosen Ms West as “the best candidate”.

Former Investment NSW deputy secretary Jenny West.

The next day, Mr Ayres put his signature to a document confirming “a successful candidate identified” next to the word “approved”. The Ayres-signed document also said Mr Perrottet, then treasurer, and Mr Barilaro, then deputy premier and trade minister, “will be notified”.

The offer to Ms West was rescinded in September, according to evidence given last week to a parliamentary committee by Investment NSW chief executive Amy Brown, after it had been relayed to Ms Brown from Mr Barilaro, then deputy premier and trade minister, that a “decision of government” had determined the New York job was to be a ministerial appointment and not a public service one.

Mr Barilaro was selected for the New York job in May this year, and his appointment was announced on June 17 – following a second recruitment process for the job and some months after he had resigned from parliament.

Ms West was not in contention during the second round selection process, having left the public service and received a financial settlement following her upset at being denied the post offered to her last August. The Barilaro appointment went ahead, after the New York job was readvertised, as a public service appointment, not a ministerial one.

A NSW parliamentary inquiry is investigating possible irregularities in the Barilaro appointment following revelations about Ms West’s treatment and claims of “jobs for the boys”. Mr Barilaro succumbed to pressure last week and said he would not take up the New York position, which he’d been due to start within days.

Ms West is expected to give her account of the selection process in evidence to the parliamentary inquiry on Monday.

Former deputy premier John Barilaro. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

The documents released on Thursday also show Mr Ayres, promoted to Liberal Party deputy and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment by Mr Perrottet as the incoming Premier after Mr Barilaro quit the ministry last October, kept close tabs on the second round selection process for the New York job that ultimately went to Mr Barilaro.

They show Mr Ayres was shown a shortlist of candidates by Ms Brown for the New York job, and she briefed him on progress. Mr Ayres also met a highly qualified woman on the second-round shortlist, Kimberley Cole.

NSW Labor Upper House leader Penny Sharpe, who is on the parliamentary committee, said the documents showed Ms West was selected as the “successful candidate” in the first round, and a well qualified woman other than Mr Barilaro was in serious contention in the second round, but was also overlooked.

Ms Sharpe said claims within the Perrottet government that the Barilaro appointment was conducted at arm’s length were seen to be false. She said evidence was “getting to the point” where it seemed Mr Perrottet might have misled parliament. She also hit out at a leak she said must have come from someone on the parliamentary committee of a transcript of evidence Ms Brown gave in camera last week.

Ms Sharpe said the leak was an “egregious” breach of parliamentary privilege and amounted to an appalling intimidation of a witness ahead of Ms West’s scheduled appearance at the parlia­mentary committee on Monday.