An inquiry this week has heard new details of a job lined up for former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro. 

Mr Barilaro’s former chief of staff this week claimed that the then-deputy New South Wales premier had stated as early as 2019 that he wanted a New York trade job for “when I get the f**k out of this place”.

The comments were made to an inquiry into Mr Barilaro’s now-abandoned appointment to a New York posting last month.

Former staffer Mark Connell claims he had a conversation with his then-boss in April 2019 in which he told Mr Barilaro that “the Agent General [a London-based trade commissioner role] will be filled well before you retire from this place”. 

Mr Barilaro allegedly responded: “I don’t want to go to London, f**k that, I’m off to New York.”

Mr Connell said in his submission: “I responded and stated; ‘Our current office and staff are in California’.”

“Mr Barilaro responded and stated; ‘I’ll get them to put one in New York, that’s where I’m off to’.”

Mr Barilaro said Mr Connell’s submission was false.

“The conversation he has recalled is fictitious, false and only serves as a reminder as to why we had to part ways,” Mr Barilaro said in a statement released after Connell’s submission became public.

“If this inquiry is genuine in its intent to understand the process and the truth by which I was appointed, then surely I would be called up to provide this detail immediately.

“The continued drip feed of select information from the inquiry into the public domain goes against all procedural fairness.”

Many consider the leading candidate for the job of senior trade and investment commissioner (STIC) to the Americas to have been former public servant Jenny West. 

Ms West says she was offered the job and was making preparations to move to New York when she found out it had been taken from her and handed to Mr Barilaro. 

NSW Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade (DEIT) general counsel Chris Carr also appeared in front of the upper house inquiry this week, and said that Ms West had never been “fully offered” the job. 

Ms West says she spoke to Mr Carr about her employment issues, after she was verbally offered the STIC Americas role, but had that offer withdrawn and was made redundant from her role as deputy secretary at Investment NSW. 

Mr Carr said US tax implications delayed the signing of a contract, meaning Ms West’s job application was “well-advanced but not at the end of it”.

Mr Carr said Investment NSW’s lawyers and Ms West’s lawyers had been in contact, and that Ms West had an opportunity to explain her situation when she received her letter of termination from secretary of the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet Michael Coutts-Trotter.

Mr Carr also claimed he had never been contacted by Mr Barilaro’s office about changing the trade job from public service appointments to ministerial, and that he had not been in contact with Mr Barilaro until he was offered the job, at a time when Mr Barilaro had become a private citizen. 

Mr Carr said he was moved to correct the record out of concern that previous claims “could create the perception of an uncaring public service”.

A second inquiry into the matter has been set up at the direction of NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, to be led by former NSW public service commissioner Graeme Head.

A third inquiry could be looming too, after the NSW upper house sent Ms West’s evidence to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) last week.