Former New South Wales deputy premier John Barilaro fast-tracked a cabinet submission to turn the senior trade jobs now at the centre of a political scandal into ministerial appointments, instructing a staff member to get it done “ASAP”, an inquiry has heard.
A transcript of evidence given by former adviser Joseph Brayford to the parliamentary inquiry probing Barilaro’s appointment to a $500,000-a-year New York trade posting also suggests Barilaro planned to discuss the change with his ministerial colleagues in the NSW government.
It comes as Dominic Perrottet admitted he was disappointed the saga around the appointment has distracted from his first overseas trip as premier, and said he was concerned about how the hiring process was handled.
On Thursday the committee running the probe released a transcript of evidence given by Brayford in a secret hearing held earlier this week.
It reveals that just weeks before Barilaro quit parliament he instructed staff to prepare a submission for cabinet to allow ministers to appoint the trade commissioners, instead of the public service.
The process, the committee heard, was unusually fast. Brayford said Barilaro sent him a text message in September telling him to contact the head of Investment NSW, Amy Brown, to arrange a cabinet submission in order to allow ministers to appoint the roles.
Asked if the request had a deadline, Brayford said: “No. I believe it said ‘ASAP’.”
Brayford told the committee that prior to the text his contact with Barilaro had been infrequent, although he wasn’t surprised to receive the request.
“Nothing really surprised me with John,” he said.
“You know, he is an interesting character … I don’t really mean anything. I don’t think I’d ever worked with someone so keen and so ambitious.”
The submission was eventually lodged with cabinet on 17 September last year, before going before ministers only 10 days later on 27 September. Under questioning from Labor’s shadow treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, Brayford conceded the process had been faster than usual.
“The usual practice was a few weeks of … circulating or something, yes,” he said.
Mookhey asked: “So that process didn’t take place?”
Brayford replied: “No, I think [Barilaro] indicated to me a specific cabinet meeting that it was going to go to and then I just would have prepared according to that.”
The former staffer said he had not dealt directly with other ministers on the submission, but Barilaro had told him that he himself would.
“I recall having a conversation with the deputy premier and he said to me that he would talk to the other ministers,” he said.
Speaking from Tokyo on Thursday, Perrottet said he no longer stood by his earlier comment that he saw no “substantive issue” with Barilaro’s hiring. He said evidence, first revealed by the Guardian, that businesswoman and former public servant Jenny West had initially been offered the job had concerned him.
“Concerns have come to light in relation to how Jenny West’s matter was handled,” he said.
“I was not aware of [that]. I think it is pretty clear that improvements to the system can be made.”
Despite that, NSW Labor revealed on Thursday that Perrottet had declined an invitation to appear before the upper house committee probing the matter.
Mookhey told media that Perrottet had “questions to answer” over the appointment and claimed he was “fearful of scrutiny”.
“This is a very disappointing decision by the premier,” he said.
“If the premier wants the public to believe that this process was above board, he should have made himself available to the committee directly to take questions.
“The fact that the premier has now from Japan declined an invitation to appear certainly does make us think that the premier is a bit fearful of scrutiny of his role here. He does have serious questions to answer himself.”
Barilaro has been contacted for a response to Brayford’s evidence.
Brayford’s evidence is significant because it suggests Barilaro was pushing to have the trade positions made into ministerial appointments just weeks before he announced his resignation from parliament on 4 October.
While the ministerial appointments never went ahead because the incoming minister, Stuart Ayres, decided to keep the positions as public service appointments, the new evidence confirms the deputy premier was directly involved in seeking to change the roles prior to his departure from parliament.
Barilaro, who was appointed in June, has since quit the trade role, 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”.
On Wednesday, a submission from Barilaro’s former chief of staff, Mark Connell, to the inquiry alleged his former boss had stated as early as 2019 that he wanted a New York trade job for “when I get the fuck out of this place”.
Barilaro rejected the accusation, describing it as “fictitious”.
