NSW’s top trade officer in the UK has said it is offensive to suggest his appointment was a case of “jobs for the boys”.
Agent-General to the UK Stephen Cartwright appeared at a parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday morning, where he defended his qualifications for the role.
It was the first time Cartwright has had the opportunity to tell his side of the story to the state’s Public Accountability Committee, which has been looking into his appointment for months.
The inquiry heard Cartwright had been asked whether he would consider the role by the state’s then deputy premier John Barilaro, during a “freewheeling” meeting over coffee in February 2021.
Cartwright said he had no idea at the time that another candidate had already been recommended for the role by an external recruitment panel, which had completed its search.
The following day Cartwright visited Barilaro’s office for a further 15-minute talk, where he confirmed he was interested in applying for the role.
However, Cartwright rejected the assertion that he gained any unfair advantage over any other candidate via those interactions, nor because the recruitment panel reconvened to interview him without publicly announcing the job was still up for grabs.
“I don’t think it had anything to do with me being offered the position, because the quality of individuals who sat on that panel would never allow themselves to be influenced in that way,” he said.
NSW Greens MP and committee chair Cate Faehrmann said it seemed his appointment was a “classic example” of a “jobs for the boys scenario”.
“I find that totally unacceptable,” Cartwright responded. “My qualifications for this role are unable to be challenged … I’m crystal clear that three highly impressive senior independent panel members decided that I was the most suitable person for this role based on merit.”
“I find it offensive,” he added.
Cartwright denied he’d had any conversations with any ministers since then, apart from a text message to former trade minister Stuart Ayres and a conversation with Corrections Minister Geoff Lee about another job offer, which he turned down.
He said the text message he sent to Ayres related to rent and school fees Cartwright felt he was owed by the government.
Cartwright explained in his opening statement he had been asked to do Investment NSW a “favour” by agreeing to split his annual $600,000 salary so that he would be receiving part of it in the form of an allowance.
The reason was so the agency would not have to make a special application to a remuneration tribunal before signing off on the salary package, which otherwise wouldn’t have “fit within the appropriate public sector band”, Cartwright said.
His text message to Ayres was to complain his expectations of that allowance hadn’t been met.
Labor MP Daniel Mookhey put to Cartwright that sort of direct communication with a minister by a public servant was “highly inappropriate”, and Cartwright responded he wasn’t aware of that at the time because the UK role was his first in the public sector.
Mookhey later accused Cartwright of misleading the committee, after Cartwright denied he had “ever had any discussions with ministers about [his] arrangements whatsoever”.
Mookhey took Cartwright to an email he had sent in June this year, where he referenced an unnamed minister who had been “very clear that school fees could be dealt with the same way as we are dealing with the rent”.
“This isn’t an ancient email, this is from three months ago, and it makes it very clear that you are having a discussion with a minister,” Mookhey said.
“I don’t need to revisit my evidence,” Cartwright responded. “The reference to what the minister said were simply things that were relayed to me.”
As Crikey revealed on Monday, Cartwright will likely be called to give further evidence, pending the release of documents the government hopes to keep under wraps.
A committee member told the hearing on Wednesday a second Cartwright hearing was “highly likely”.
