John Barilaro inquiry as it happened: Former deputy premier’s chief of staff Siobhan Hamblin appears as investigation continues

Thanks for joining us on another day of hearings into former deputy premier John Barilaro’s controversial appointment to a plum New York trade role.

On the fifth day of the upper house inquiry we heard from the following witnesses:

Barilaro’s former chief of staff Siobhan Hamblin: Hamblin said Barilaro never raised a personal interest in the trade roles but first asked her about the appointment process, and whether it could be changed, in June last year. She also said she urged the former deputy premier not to resign amid the COVID crisis last October, but he proceeded to step down days after then-Premier Gladys Berejiklian. She could not explain why he was seeking an urgent cabinet minute around changing the trade appointments.

Investment NSW managing director Kylie Bell: Bell told Barilaro he got the job via text on May 23. She felt the recruitment firm held “a bit of unconscious bias” against him in the recruitment process and said he would have been able to “get things happening” in New York. While Bell received a glowing reference for the other candidate, Kimberley Cole, she said Cole did not have enough experience in the US market or in NSW and was not best-suited for the New York role.

Public Service Commissioner Kathrina Lo: Lo said both herself and independent panel member Warwick Smith would not have endorsed the final panel selection report that endorsed John Barilaro if they knew the information they knew now. Lo said she was concerned by “the degree of ministerial involvement, including input into shortlisting and provision of an informal reference” as well as the treatment of the third-ranked candidate. She said she felt she may have been used as political cover by the hiring firm or department secretary Amy Brown.

In the final slot of questioning for the day, public service commissioner Kathrina Lo has told the inquiry it’s “hard to comment” on whether John Barilaro was appointed to the $500,000-a-year New York trade posting on merit.

However, she agreed he was a capable candidate.

Government MP Wes Fang put these questions about Barilaro’s candidacy to her just before the inquiry wrapped up for the day.

Government: Do you believe that John Barilaro earned that role on merit?

Lo: That is very hard for me to comment on now because I now am aware of things I wasn’t aware of at the time. And I think if I was aware of those things at the time, there may have been a different conversation among the panel members. That’s just the position I’m in now.

The state’s public service commissioner Kathrina Lo has told the inquiry she was concerned she may have been used as political cover in the recruitment process.

In her opening statement, she said: “As Public Service Commissioner, I should not be viewed as cover for a recruitment process or as a way for other panel members or the hiring agency to avoid accountability.”

Labor: What do you mean by that?

Lo: I’m a participant on the panel. I don’t have elevated status compared to any other panel member because of my job title. My view does not carry more weight.

Labor: You’re not a green light?

Public Service Commissioner Kathrina Lo, who was on the selection panel that appointed John Barilaro, says she did not know that an early draft panel report was changed to downgrade Kimberley Cole’s assessment and enhance Barilaro’s.

“That is what I only recently learned,” Lo has told the inquiry.

She also told the inquiry she had serious concerns about the treatment of the third-ranked candidate, who had already been interviewed in an earlier recruitment round. The original interview assessment for that candidate was substantially downgraded, unbeknownst to Lo.

“I had trusted that the first assessment would be carried over, and with the benefit of hindsight, I should have asked to see the first panel’s report. I deeply regret not doing so and I’ve learned a hard lesson.”

Investment NSW managing director Kylie Bell has told an inquiry that the first version of a selection panel report for the New York trade role ranked a female candidate highest to “help fulfil our mandate of looking at someone from a diverse background”.

Documents have previously shown that Investment NSW wanted to appoint a woman to the Americas trade role because many of the other appointments had been men.

“There had been a preference to try and find a successful female candidate,” Bell said.

She speculated that was the reason that the recruitment firm ranked global executive Kimberley Cole as the first choice of the selection panel, ahead of Barilaro.

Investment NSW managing director Kylie Bell has told the inquiry she felt the recruitment firm held “a bit of unconscious bias” against John Barilaro during the hiring process.

She said the hiring panel agreed after the interviews on March 15 they “very clearly” had two top candidates: global executive Kimberley Cole and former deputy premier John Barilaro.

She said the next step was to conduct reference checks and differentiate the candidates.

But the recruitment firm sent a panel report back before that, on March 25, that elevated Cole above Barilaro.

Bell has agreed with Investment NSW Amy Brown and said that first report was not fair to Barilaro. “I feel like there was a bit of unconscious bias... I’m dismissing the conclusion that they drew in this report,” she said.