The key messages that summarise the whole messy saga.
Text messages tabled in the inquiry into former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro’s US trade appointment have revealed the reactions of media advisers and senior public servants. With more revelations rolling in every day, here are a few key exchanges to catch you up.
The bare bones
In November 2020 Barilaro, then trade minister, announced the creation of five senior trade and investment commissioners. By August 2021 Investment NSW was readying a press release on the successful candidates but in September, emails show, the agency’s general counsel began investigating whether the commissioners could be employed via ministerial appointments. By October Investment NSW CEO Amy Brown emailed the recruiter involved in the process to say she had “confirmed instructions” to prepare legislation to convert the commissioners to statutory offices, “i.e. ministerial appointments” and the New York post would be handled as an “internal matter”. The next day Barilaro announced his intention to leave politics. Six months later he was appointed to the role.
May 6
On May 6 this year Brown messaged Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter to let him know she had the go-ahead from Premier Dominic Perrottet to give Barilaro the job.
Read the messages that lay out the whole Barilaro scandal…
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