NSW’s top public servant considering sacking department head over John Barilaro’s NY trade appointment

NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter says he is yet to form a ‘final view’ on the Amy Brown’s future after she appointed John Barilaro to a New York trade role. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

The most senior New South Wales public servant has revealed he is considering firing the person responsible for appointing the former deputy premier, John Barilaro, to a lucrative New York trade job.

This came as the state premier, Dominic Perrottet, refused to rule out allowing his party’s former deputy Stuart Ayres to return to cabinet, just a month after Ayres resigned over the trade commissioner scandal that engulfed the government.