Inquiry chair Cate Faehrmann asks John Barilaro: “Are you able to see why the general public is suspicious about this complete course of?”
Barilaro: I completely perceive. That’s the reason I’m right here at the moment, voluntarily, to clarify the method. It was a public service, impartial course of. Simply since you’re a former member of parliament doesn’t exclude you.
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Faehrmann: Did you’ve any issues whenever you heard the Public Service Commissioner, for instance, on Friday afternoon, saying that she wouldn’t have endorsed the choice panel report if she knew then what she is aware of now?
Barilaro: The truth is that I didn’t know any of that both. So identical to the Public Service Commissioner, I didn’t know that there have been these intersections, if that’s the phrase that was getting used. I went into an impartial course of {that a} panel assessed me and supplied me a job.
Different proof has come about. However that’s not on me. I had no position in searching for any favour or particular remedy within the course of. It’s simply unattainable, it’s an impartial public service course of.
Faehrmann: I put to you then the person who was doing all of your bidding was minister [Stuart] Ayres.
Barilaro: I don’t imagine he was doing my bidding. Listening to the proof of final week, he was sought recommendation on numerous events and he gave that recommendation.
Now, it appears to be like muddy and messy. Completely, I can perceive the notion and perceive what’s occurred within the public. I’m not foolish, I perceive that. However that wasn’t the case … I genuinely believed the method was honest … and that will give me cowl.
The political assault was at all times going to return, I’m not foolish about that, however I used to be assured that the method was so clear, so impartial, that my choice [could easily stand]. [I’m] disenchanted that it hasn’t been as clear because it ought to have been, and I’m the sufferer, I’m not the perpetrator.
What did I do improper? I acquired supplied a job, I accepted the job … I can’t inform you what occurred behind closed doorways as a result of I wasn’t concerned in it.
