Amy Brown: Public servant in John Barilaro, New York City scandal is sacked

The senior NSW bureaucrat who appointed former Deputy Prime Minister John Barilaro to a plum $500,000 trading job has written a LinkedIn message saying she is “exploring new opportunities.”

But Amy Brown forgot to mention that she was fired.

Ms Brown was dragged into the scandal over Mr Barilaro’s nomination after appointing the former NSW Deputy Prime Minister to a trade envoy in New York – despite there being a range of other well-qualified candidates.

Ms Brown announced that she is now “exploring new opportunities” in a post on the professional services website.

Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary Michael Coutts-Trotter, after carefully assessing Ms Brown’s conduct, said he had decided she would not remain as head of the Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade.

“It is a privilege to fulfill a role as a senior leader in NSW’s public service,” he said in a statement Monday.

‘This rightly involves a high degree of accountability.’

In a social media post on Sunday, Ms Brown did not say she had been fired but instead said she was proud of her time in government.

“After working for the NSW government for nearly ten years, my tenure has come to an end,” she said.

“I’m exploring new opportunities in the private sector and hope to make an announcement soon.”

An independent inquiry into Mr. Barilaro’s nomination for a $500,000-a-year taxpayer-funded job in the US found that Ms. Brown was indirectly influenced by the preference of the then Secretary of Commerce, Stuart Ayres, for whom the role would receive.

Mr Ayres resigned as minister last month after a draft excerpt from the review raised questions about whether he violated the ministerial code of conduct with his involvement in the nomination process.

The investigation found that the appointment of Mr. Barilaro was not kept at a distance from the government.

NSW bureaucrat Amy Brown said in a social media post that she is ‘exploring new opportunities’ but forgot to say it was due to her being fired

Former NSW Deputy Prime Minister John Barilaro (pictured) testifies during the inquiry into his appointment as Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner for America at NSW Parliament House in Sydney, Monday, August 8, 2022

Prime Minister Dominic Perrottet said the nomination process was “faulty from the start” and ordered an independent legal review to determine whether Mr Ayres had violated the ministerial code.

The assessment, conducted by former ICAC inspector Bruce McClintock SC and released last week, found that Mr Ayres had not broken the code, but he remains in the back seat.

Ms Brown resigned from her role as Head of Investment NSW in August, saying she wanted to focus on her position as Department Secretary.

Mr Barilaro resigned from the trading job in June, just weeks after his appointment was announced, saying the role was untenable and had become a distraction.

The appointment plunged the Perrottet administration into months of turmoil as the merits of the trial came under scrutiny.

A Resolve Political Monitor investigation last month revealed how damaging the affair had been to the NSW government.

Amy Brown (pictured) witnessed the investigation into John Barilaro’s nomination for a $500,000 job in New York

It found that with 49 percent of coalition voters, the job given to Mr Barilaro was ‘unjustly’ awarded.

Elizabeth Mildwater will replace Mrs Brown from Tuesday.

She is the current chief executive of the Greater Cities Commission and former Assistant Secretary of Transport for NSW.

Mr Perrottet has been contacted for comment.