Click here to follow live updates on the Stuart Ayres resignation and Amy Brown speaking at the John Barilaro inquiry from 10.30am AEST.
NSW Trade Minister and Deputy Liberal Leader Stuart Ayres has resigned after Premier Dominic Perrottet received an “excerpt” yesterday of the forthcoming independent report into the John Barilaro scandal that raised questions about the “engagement” between Ayres, his department secretary Amy Brown, and the recruitment process around John Barilaro’s appointment to a lucrative New York trade post.
Since Monday, documents have been publicly available showing that contrary to his claims about having played no part in Barilaro’s appointment, Ayres played a role in shaping the shortlist for the process. Moreover, the recruitment panel report was changed to elevate Barilaro and downgrade a superior candidate.
The report, commissioned by Perrottet and being conducted by former senior public servant Graeme Head, is not yet complete, but Perrottet said today he had received an excerpt from the draft report that raised questions about a potential breach of the ministerial code of conduct. Perrottet insists Ayres maintains he has done nothing wrong.
The departure of Ayres comes ahead of further hearings by the NSW Legislative Council inquiry this morning where Brown is set to be grilled about why the recruitment panel report was changed and what role Ayres played in the process, given documents produced on Monday showed Ayres was set to decide between two final candidates.
It’s been clear since at least last week that Ayres’ claim that the Barilaro appointment was conducted entirely at arm’s length from the government was contradicted by documents steadily emerging from the Legislative Council inquiry. The result has been serious damage to the government as Ayres resisted pressure to resign and insisted all was well, to the growing and increasingly open incredulity of his colleagues.
Perrottet now says there is evidence that Ayres did influence the Barilaro recruitment, while Ayres denies doing anything wrong. His colleagues will be wondering why Ayres’ memory is so at odds with the documents that clearly lay out his role.
The role of Brown remains unclear and continues to be the subject of the Head inquiry as well as today’s inquiry hearing.
What is so troublesome is that he, like many before him, does not recognise that he has done anything wrong. Do politicians in general need some ethics training?
Maybe an ethics test should be a mandatory minimum for putting your hand up in the first place. Can’t grasp the basic elementary principles needed for public service? Automatic exclusion! Know them but break them anyway? Expulsion!
You just try and help out a mate and this is what happens? Where’s the Anzac spirit? Honestly Stuart they don’t deserve you!
?
Oops, that “?” should have been the laughing ’til I cry emoji.
It seems that once you get into Parliament you start to believe your own lies. Fortunately there were documents available to reveal the truth. So one down, maybe another one to go.
Running parallel with the Barra business is a fracas re Dom’s decision to lavish slightly fewer millions on the NRL. New and rebuilt stadia, centres of excellence etc, ridiculous spending on a sport with a tiny international profile, stagnant attendances and smallish player participation numbers.
Ayres has been the driver of this strategy, which exists entirely to keep the Telegraph on side (Today’s front page: ‘Dom’s war on footy’). Don’t think there are many votes in it though.
Agree entirely. Why the hell should public money be spenmt on a commercial enterprise?
The Telegraph is impotent when it comes to influencing voters. The more pollies that realise this, the better our state will be
Amy Brown comes across as not quite right, too.
While I think Brown is a repugnant human being, I do have a smidgen of sympathy for her. Situations occur in the public service where a person becomes a dead man walking. Refuse to cooperate with the express or implied commands of the Powers That Be, and your career is finished, with spiteful revenge hindering attempts to reestablish elsewhere; go along with it, and you can be sure you’ll be the one copping the majority of the blame, and a similar end to your career, while the perpetrators get off scott free.
Thankfully not been a victim myself, but have seen it happen to others down here at the coalface, and this has the same look and smell.
Her belief that god wanted her to have that position tends to damn her