A ‘female focus’ and short shortlists: the long road taken to fill NSW’s New York trade role

Last December, as staff inside Investment NSW were preparing to resume the search for a senior trade commissioner based in New York, a brief spelled out instructions given to the recruitment firm charged with finding candidates for the job.

The company was to "focus on female candidates", according to a copy of the brief prepared for the agency's chief executive, Amy Brown, that was obtained through parliament.

There is evidence they tried. After former senior public servant and businesswoman Jenny West's verbal offer for the role was revoked in August, the company, NGS Global, ran a second round of recruitment.

Among the interviewees for the job was Kimberly Cole, a senior businesswoman who met with the trade minister, Stuart Ayres, in March. Other documents suggest another person who was interviewed for the job was also a woman.

Former NSW Coalition leader Kerry Chikarovski is also understood to have been in the mix for the role. She did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.

Instead, in June, former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro was announced as the successful candidate for the lucrative role.

This week, as the controversy surrounding his now-abandoned appointment entered its second month, the focus turned to Ayres, the deputy Liberal party leader who took over the trade portfolio after Barilaro announced his resignation from parliament last October.

Despite repeated assurances from the government - and Ayres himself - that Barilaro's appointment to the plum job was handled by the public service at arm's length from ministers, a series of revelations has raised new questions about how he ended up in the job.

On Thursday Guardian Australia revealed that on 8 February this year, Brown sent an email to colleagues in the agency stating that she had met with Ayres to "run through" the shortlist for the New York position.

During the meeting, Brown wrote, he asked her to add a name.

The name, which remains a secret, was not Barilaro's. It raises an interesting subplot: was Ayres, who previously said he knew Barilaro might apply for the job because the former deputy premier told him via text message in December, actually trying to block his candidacy?

Ayres himself said during a press conference last month that he "had some concerns" Barilaro's candidacy could "create some political contention".

"I think I can say to everyone here, I'm hardly known as the flag bearer of the John Barilaro fan club, but he's a private citizen and we've got to be able to make sure that any private citizen who applies for a role gets a fair hearing," he said at the time.

But at the same press conference, Ayres also said that "politicians have not played any role in the selection and recruitment process" of the New York trade role, and that any attempt on his part to direct the public service over hiring would have amounted to "undue influence".

Ayres has continued to deny he influenced the process. During a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday, he said: "I have not under any circumstances influenced the decisions of Amy Brown in who she is selecting as senior executives of the public service."

But the documents at least call into question the government's claim the process was handled entirely by the public service. In fact, emails from within the agency suggest Ayres' involvement extended to instructions on which media outlets to advertise the position in.

The documents have placed intense pressure on Ayres, who is due to return with the premier, Dominic Perrottet, from an overseas trade trip over the weekend. A number of senior ministers within the government are furious that the saga shows no sign of letting up, with further hearings of the parliamentary inquiry probing the posting to be held next week. Barilaro himself is due to appear on 8 August.

The Labor opposition's refusal to call for Ayres' resignation similarly suggests there is no appetite on their part to bring to a close a saga which has completely derailed the government's agenda less than a year out from the next election.

As shadow treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, said on Thursday: "Our preferred remedy here isn't just to get rid of Stuart Ayres. It's for the people of New South Wales to get rid of this government."

When the hearings do resume, with Brown to appear for a second time, much of the focus will be on the timeline of the appointments.

When she first appeared before the committee in June, Brown said she made the call to hire Barilaro on 1 April, after interviews were held in mid-March.

She said she told Ayres of her decision sometime that month, and that he responded: "You're the decision-maker, so it's your decision."

But other documents released to parliament have muddied that timeline. As reported by Guardian Australia, a briefing document states that Investment NSW was still waiting on "ministerial feedback" on the position by 28 April, while other previously unreported documents raise further questions.

On 3 May, Brown wrote an email to three staff members in her agency asking for a copy of the role description for the New York job.

"When you have a spare moment (not urgent), could someone please send over the RD for STIC Americas? For a contact in (sic) mine who hasn't applied for the role, but might consider it if it came around AGAIN!" she wrote.

Then on 28 May, an email from the head of the recruitment firm tasked with headhunting for the role sent Brown an email containing reference reports for "the top two candidates" for the job: Barilaro and Cole. "As discussed," the recruiter wrote.

Investment NSW did not respond to questions about the email, but those dates - well after Perrottet was told of Barilaro's appointment on 30 April - will be of keen interest to the committee, as will another email, sent on 29 September, stating there was still a "preferred candidate" for the job prior to the second recruitment process commencing.

To understand its significance, you need to go back to the woman who almost did get the job. In August, former senior public servant and businesswoman Jenny West was verbally offered the role.

Brown, who was then her boss, sent her a signed brief from Gladys Berejiklian, still the premier at the time, noting she was the "successful candidate" for the posting.

"This is one to frame," she wrote in a message which included emojis of a champagne bottle and the Statue of Liberty.

But, as has been widely reported, the job was scuppered when Barilaro, a week before his resignation, took a decision to cabinet to have the senior trade roles appointed by ministers. That decision passed on 27 September.

In her explosive testimony to an upper house inquiry earlier this month, West claimed Brown told her during a meeting that the job would be "a present for someone".

On Thursday, Mookhey said Brown had been recalled to answer the committee's "additional lines of inquiry".

"I think that the committee certainly has more information about which means that we are in a better position to test the evidence or witnesses," he said.

Barilaro has since withdrawn from the position, citing the intense media attention his appointment had garnered, but has said he "always maintained that I followed the process".