Ayres cleared but still raining on Perrottet’s parade

The former trade minister Stuart Ayres may have been cleared of any wrongdoing in the John Barilaro trade saga but his exoneration does nothing but create more political pain for the premier.

Dominic Perrottet is now left with an impossible choice: reinstate Ayres to cabinet or keep him on the backbench and ignore the finding that his former deputy leader did nothing wrong.

Both options come with significant risks to the premier, who has already been wounded by the trade scandal that managed to suck up almost all the government’s oxygen since the June budget.

The focus on trade roles has now shifted to the agent-general role in London, but if Perrottet brings Ayres back into cabinet, it will breathe new life into the Barilaro appointment (which the former deputy premier has long since relinquished).

Regardless of the findings of esteemed barrister Bruce McClintock, SC, Ayres will remain tainted by the trade scandal in the court of public opinion. Voters, as public polling has revealed, see the appointment of Barilaro as a classic “jobs for the boys” scenario. The damage is done.

Labor would already be planning its campaign material for Ayres’ seat of Penrith, the Liberals’ second-most marginal which the ALP wants to seize at the March state election. The opposition will not hesitate to link Ayres to the trade scandal, despite McClintock’s legal opinion.

Perrottet’s most senior public servant Michael Coutts-Trotter made it clear in a budget estimates hearing last week that he was preparing the groundwork to sack Amy Brown, the bureaucrat ultimately responsible for appointing Barilaro.

Brown will be the sacrificial lamb, but that does not absolve the government from any blame. Voters expect elected officials to be held accountable, not just public servants.

In terms of procedural fairness, Ayres is entitled to demand his cabinet job back given he was cleared by the very review that was instigated by his boss. Some in cabinet insist this precedent was set when former arts minister Don Harwin was allowed back into the ministry in 2020 after a fine he received for breaching COVID-19 isolation rules was torn up by the courts.