The NSW Premier had some words for his former deputy when told he planned to apply for a cushy taxpayer-funded job in New York, John Barilaro said on Monday.
“Go for it,” Mr Barilaro recalled Premier Dominic Perrottet saying after he mentioned plans to apply for the role of the government’s New York trade representative during a chat.
The brief exchange connects Mr Perrottet directly to a decision he has spent weeks distancing himself from and which has produced pandemonium in his partyroom.
On Monday, Mr Barilaro told a NSW parliamentary inquiry into his appointment to the position that the scandal about the circumstances of his securing the job and recent media scrutiny had put him under great strain.
“If I knew what I know now, I wish I never had applied,” he said.
“The trauma I’ve gone through over the past six to seven weeks has been significant.”
Mr Barilaro said he could not be held accountable for the messy process that led to him getting the job after he resigned from Parliament late last year.
“I’m the victim out of that,” he said.
“I’m not the perpetrator.”
But there were tense moments on Monday in other exchanges with MPs leading the public hearing.
Opposition MLC Penny Sharpe said documents had shown Mr Barilaro’s partner was involved in advertising for the trade commissioner’s job, raising questions about how he first learned of the role.
Mr Barilaro said the two were not in a relationship at the time and that she had been employed only on a short-term contract in the public service.
“I was not in a relationship with her while I was deputy premier or the trade minister,” he said.
Nationals MLC Wes Fang said the questioning was not warranted: “Disgraceful”.
Mr Barilaro and Coalition MPs also responded with uproar on Monday when Ms Sharpe asked about the timeline of his relationship with his current partner and former media adviser. She went onto work at Investment NSW, the department that eventually hired Mr Barilaro.
He said only one member of the former NSW cabinet voiced any objections to him being appointed to the job, which happened in early June.
He also admitted – but only after some delay – that former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell was one of his referees, but angrily denied his application had been advantaged by inside information obtained while a minister.
“You’re making me out to be corrupt,” Mr Barilaro said when asked about whether his former Coalition colleagues knew he would soon retire from Parliament and seek new work.
Mr Barilaro said the public had been presented with a narrative that suggested he had, while still a minister, created the lucrative job as the NSW government’s New York trade commissioner for himself.
“I would refute that,” he said. “The unfortunate timeline of events [… is] a series of coincidences.”
Earlier, the inquiry had heard from a senior NSW government executive, Jenny West. She was named the successful candidate for the position but said it was later taken off her.
In an astonishing piece of evidence, Mr Barilaro said that he had not previously signed a ministerial brief advising him of Ms West’s appointment.
“It is possible I gave instructions to my staff to sign the brief on my behalf,” he said.
“That is a digital signature, it hasn’t got my personal signature on it.”
According to an initial ranking of applicants by a human resources company, Mr Barilaro was not the best candidate for the role. His grading on that assessment was later increased.
NSW Liberal deputy leader Stuart Ayres was formerly responsible for the department whose top bureaucrat ultimately decided to offer Mr Barilaro employment.
He quit as trade minister last week, after another hearing found he had tipped off Mr Barilaro about the job opportunity and talked him up to the public servant in charge of the hiring process.
Mr Barilaro withdrew from the New York job in June, amid the storm of controversy surrounding his appointment.
The inquiry will convene again this week.
