The senior transport executive who narrowly missed out on becoming the New South Wales transport secretary resigned as the chief executive of the state’s rail corporation after the position was handed to a former Labor staffer.
The appointment of Josh Murray has come under scrutiny after the transport minister, Jo Haylen, revealed her office intervened in a process to see her pick added to the selection process before she chose him for the role.
Murray’s rival for the job was Benedicte Colin, the head of the Transport Asset Holding Entity, or Tahe.
Both were recommended to the minister after an independent panel interviewed the candidates and, after speaking with each of them herself, the minister picked Murray. His appointment was announced in June.
Colin resigned from her post as the head of Tahe in July.
She said her passion for transport led her to apply but that her resignation had nothing to do with eventually missing out.
“The transport portfolio is a vast and exciting space, and my passion for public transport and infrastructure led me to apply for the secretary position,” she said.
“In July 2023, I resigned from my role as CEO for Tahe. It is time for new leadership to take the incredible people in this organisation forward on the next steps of its journey.
“My reasons for leaving Tahe are unrelated to the recruitment process or the appointment of the new secretary.”
While Colin has tendered her resignation, she will remain in the job until a new leader is found, which is expected to take several months.
Colin has led Tahe since September 2021. Before then, she worked as a senior investment director for Caisse des Depots et Placement du Quebec.
Tahe itself has come under intense criticism, with the state’s auditor general, Margaret Crawford, earlier this year finding the entity was designed to meet the previous government’s budgetary goals.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Colin has “20 years’ experience in leadership and investment roles in Europe and Australia in the infrastructure sector”.
Haylen has been accused by the opposition of “breathtaking hypocrisy” over the appointment of Murray, amid claims of “jobs for the boys” that have been likened to John Barilaro’s appointment to a lucrative trade job under the previous government.
Murray worked as an executive at Laing O’Rourke after serving as chief of staff to the former Labor premier Morris Iemma.
Speaking on 2GB yesterday, Haylen confirmed her office had asked for Murray to be added to the list of candidates because she believed he was the “right person for the job”.
She then chose him from the final two candidates put forward by a recruitment panel but refused to say who was the top candidate.
“Josh Murray is my preferred candidate,” she said.
Under the Public Sector Act, it is within the minister’s powers to choose a department head.
That was the key difference between Murray’s appointment and the selection of Barilaro into a highly-paid trade position in New York last year, according to a spokesperson for Haylen.
“The government was under no obligation to conduct a recruitment process, however it did so to test the market and give assurance that it had the right person,” she said on Friday.
“There is no comparison between this position and the John Barilaro job.”
She described the trade job as cushy and said the secretary job was, by contrast, difficult and required 24/7 attention.
Murray will begin his new job on Monday.
