The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, was sent a brief noting that former senior public servant and businesswoman Jenny West was the “successful candidate” for the New York trade job now at the centre of a major controversy.
Contained in a tranche of documents released to the parliament on Tuesday, the brief is identical to the one investment minister Stuart Ayres signed in August last year, as revealed by Guardian Australia earlier this month, as well as that sent to then premier Gladys Berejiklian.
Their release has seen Labor ramp up its attacks over former deputy premier John Barilaro’s appointment to the $500,000-a-year trade position, with the shadow treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, saying “there is a strong case now for Mr Ayres and Mr Perrottet to answer for why they didn’t mislead the parliament.”
The new documents – released on Tuesday after Labor successfully pushed to have the parliament recalled from its winter break on Friday – also include a brief sent to Barilaro.
The briefs to Perrottet, Ayres and Barilaro note that after a “full recruitment process”, West had been identified as the successful candidate for the lucrative role.
The documents state the recruitment panel, headed by the Investment NSW chief executive, Amy Brown, had recommended her for the job.
While the brief to Perrottet is unsigned, emails released to the parliament show that on 13 August a department liaison officer inside Perrottet’s office wrote to Investment NSW saying the brief was being returned as “noted”.
The brief to Barilaro is also unsigned.
The briefs place further pressure on both Perrottet and Ayres, the deputy Liberal party leader, after both men previously told parliament that no suitable candidate for the New York trade job had been selected following the first round of recruitment.
During a press conference in South Korea, where he is currently on a trade trip, the premier reiterated previous comments that his parliamentary statement was based on information from the department.
He said neither he nor his chief of staff recalled receiving the briefing.
Perrottet also defended Ayres – who is set to join the premier on the next leg of his trade mission in India – saying he was “a very strong minister in the NSW government and has been for a long period of time”.
When asked whether he still had confidence the hiring process was done at arm’s length from government, Perottet said: “I don’t know, and that’s why I’ve asked for an independent review into this getting this information.”
In a statement responding to Tuesday’s release, Ayres said the document “notes information provided by Investment NSW. It is not a brief which seeks a decision from me”.
“I would also like to make clear that this brief does not represent the end of the recruitment process,” he said.
“That could only be determined by the CEO of Investment NSW as this is public service appointment.
“This is consistent with testimony provided by the Investment NSW CEO and general-counsel to the Public Accountability Committee and the information I provided to the Legislative Assembly during question time.”
However, Labor’s Mookhey said the documents were evidence Perrottet and Ayres were “both told Jenny West was the best person for the job”.
“There is a strong case now for Mr Ayres and Mr Perrottet to answer for why they didn’t mislead parliament,” he said.
While Mookhey stopped short of committing Labor to move a censure motion against the ministers, he said: “Mr Ayres and Dominic Perrottet have made statements to the Legislative Assembly which are inaccurate, and I think you can expect the opposition will respond.”
Guardian Australia first reported in June that the New York City trade role had been offered to West in August 2021. The parliamentary inquiry has been told the first round of recruitment was discontinued after a cabinet decision to make the position a ministerial appointment. However, that decision was later reversed and it returned to being a public service appointment, with the position being readvertised in December after Barilaro left politics, and his appointment announced in June.
Despite the release of some documents on Tuesday, Labor said it would push ahead with recalling parliament from its winter break on Friday because more than 100 documents subject to a parliamentary order were kept secret.
More than 130 pages of documents given to the upper house – including applicant CVs and selection panel reports – were marked “privileged”, meaning they can only be seen by MPs in the legislative council who cannot talk about them publicly.
“This is public money,” Labor’s deputy leader in the upper house, John Graham, said on Tuesday. “The public deserves to know and it’s in the public interest that these documents are removed from behind closed doors.”
Last week, Barilaro’s former senior adviser Mark Connell provided an explosive submission to the inquiry, claiming his then boss told him he would get the state’s California trade office moved across the country because he wanted the New York job “when I get the fuck out of this place”.
Barilaro described Connell’s submission as “fictitious” and “false”.
The former deputy premier quit the trade role late last month, saying it was “now not tenable with the amount of media attention this appointment has gained”.
He said he “maintained that I followed the process and look forward to the results of the review”.
