A senior official has given an extraordinary list of reasons why she dumped the top candidate for a prized $500,000 NSW government job in New York City before a parliamentary inquiry.
Jenny West was going to land her dream job as a NSW trade commissioner in New York, but was passed over in favor of ex-state deputy prime minister John Barilaro.
Now Amy Brown, CEO of Investment NSW, has revealed during a camera session on an investigation that she received several complaints about Ms West before she withdrew the job offer.
According to transcripts of a private investigative hearing reported in the AustralianMs Brown said she received the complaints about Ms West after appointing her to the plum role last August.
Ms Brown told the inquiry she was getting feedback. Ms West ‘was out of the office for long periods but then did not explain or produce any output as to why she was not available – including travel to Canberra where I believe one of her daughters was in university’.
NSW Trade Secretary Amy Brown (above) told an investigation that after she appointed Jenny West to the esteemed role of trade ambassador, she received damning feedback on Ms West, according to leaked transcripts of an in-camera session about the selection process
Ms West was accused of often being out of office and making trips to Canberra, where her daughter was at university, without holding official meetings
“After I finally told her she wasn’t going to get the job, we did some due diligence on her journal and indeed, it confirmed what we suspected — that there didn’t seem to be a meeting,” Ms. Bruin said.
Ms West was also accused of claiming work done by her staff instead.
Mrs. Brown said she had taken a closer look at Mrs. West’s resume at the time.
“Of course she had portrayed herself as incredibly senior at Austrade, Westpac and Telstra. But when I actually… scribbled on the surface, she wasn’t as senior as she’s portrayed.
She tended to report to general managers, who at banks and telecommunications are not the most senior people in the organization, and she was with Austrade for only 18 months reporting to a deputy CEO, while the Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner is a very high role.’
Addressing Indian students here in her capacity as Deputy Secretary of Investment NSW, Ms West was described as an ‘excellently qualified’ candidate for the New York job
One of the parliamentarians present was not so impressed by the testimony.
Gunners MP Robert Borsak accused Brown of “digging in there, looking for an excuse.” “That’s pretty low,” he said, according to the transcript.
“Why are you pointing at me?” she replied.
Ms Brown told Ms West, who was then Deputy Secretary of Investment NSW, that she would not be offered the job on 17 September.
Ms. Brown testified earlier in the investigation. Ms West was “very upset about that, understandably.”
In the days after her nomination was blocked, Ms. West met with NSW’s top bureaucrat, Michael Coutts-Trotter, to express her concern about what happened, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Mr Coutts-Trotter, who is secretary to the Ministry of Prime Minister and Cabinet, received a 45-page report from Ms West outlining her concerns about what has happened.
Ms West has now left public service with an undisclosed payout.
Mr Barilaro, who was then the NSW Secretary of Commerce, intervened to change the process of hiring the state’s trade ambassador to the US and eventually claimed the job himself
As NSW Secretary of Commerce, in November 2020, Mr. Barilaro created the role of New York’s Trade Commissioner, one of five comparable jobs in major capital cities around the world.
After getting the job in May, Barilaro withdrew in June amid controversy over the nomination.
“It is clear that my acceptance of this role is now untenable with the amount of media coverage this appointment has received,” he said in a statement.
“I think my appointment will remain a distraction and will not allow this important role to achieve what it was designed for, and thus my decision.
“I emphasize that I have always maintained that I followed the process and look forward to the results of the review.”
Ms Brown said Ms West was an “outstanding candidate” who surpassed all criteria to win the New York job after beating a select shortlist of four people interviewed.
However, all appointments had to be frozen following a request on October 3 from Mr Barilaro’s office to move the positions of commissioners from an internal departmental decision to a decision to be approved by the cabinet.
Despite the cabinet agreeing to legislate for this, the New York job was given without ministerial signature, unlike other similar roles.
The job was then re-listed in December and the process handled by Investment NSW and a global recruiting firm, with Mr Barilaro being announced as the successful candidate earlier this month.
NSW Prime Minister Dominic Perrottet, who called the appointment an internal public service matter, has launched an independent inquiry separate from the parliamentary inquiry into the recruitment process.
Barilaro withdrew from politics on October 4, just days after Gladys Berejiklian sensationally resigned as prime minister when the state’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, announced it was investigating her.