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.
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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.
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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.
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.
I wonder what damage he has done to his own party and to the consent to govern by waiting a week to “resign”. Guess we’ll find out in ~9 months, but I can’t imagine that obstinacy in the face of evidence and standards will be a vote winner.
I agree. I think the LP, at both state and federal levels, has failed to understand the reality check provided by the resignation of Gladys Berejiklian and then the loss of so many so-called safe, small-l-liberal seats on 21 May. They have failed to grasp that the public is tired of such lying and dissembling from members of government and that they can no longer follow that strategy and expect to be re-elected.
Resigns? Hasn’t he only stepped aside as Trade Minister and Deputy Leader? Kick him out completely, let’s have a by election.
Ayres has resigned from those positions, and not merely stepped aside.
But why call for just a by-election, the NSW government as a whole should go, let’s have a state election.
NSW has 4yr fixed terms – Constitution (Fixed Term Parliaments) Special Provisions Act 1991 No 70 – but there is provision for an early election of the current Assembly if5: (a) a motion of no confidence in the Government is passed by the current Assembly (being a motion of which not less than 3 clear days’ notice has been given in the current Assembly), and
(b) during the period commencing on the passage of the motion of no confidence and ending 8 clear days thereafter, the current Assembly has not passed a motion of confidence in the then Government,
6: This Act does not prevent the Governor from dissolving the current Assembly in circumstances other than those specified in section 5, despite any advice of the Premier or Executive Council, if the Governor could do so in accordance with established constitutional conventions.
7: When deciding whether the current Assembly should be dissolved in accordance with this Act, the Governor is to consider whether a viable alternative Government can be formed without a dissolution and, in so doing, is to have regard to any motion passed by the current Assembly expressing confidence in an alternative Government in which a named person would be Premier.
Cheers Huginn for putting a bore in his place.