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Transport secretary hand-picked for job by minister was not recommended for role
By Michael McGowan and Max Maddison
The head-hunting firm hired by the Minns government to find a new transport secretary initially warned that the former Labor staffer handpicked for the role by Transport Minister Jo Haylen did not have enough experience for the job and did not even recommend him for an interview.
Documents released on Wednesday show Josh Murray, the former chief of staff to Labor premier Morris Iemma who was hired by Haylen to head the state’s transport department, was initially ruled out by the firm selected to find candidates for the role.
NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen, and inset, NSW’s new transport secretary Josh Murray.Credit: James Brickwood; LinkedIn
The documents reveal Haylen passed over a senior transport executive, Benedicte Colin, whose application was found to be “highly suitable” for the role.
The documents show that, in May, the recruitment firm NGS Global said Murray, who also worked as an executive for construction giant Laing O’Rourke, had “some relevance” but that his experience was “largely in corporate affairs and as Chief of Staff”.
“[Murray ] has not had level of operational complexity required for this role,” the recruitment firm found in the report on the 15 candidates who applied for the job, which was dated May 29.
Haylen’s decision to hire Murray has been the subject of intense criticism from the Coalition, who have described it as a “jobs for the boys” appointment.
Despite hiring NGS Global to lead a formal recruitment process, last week Haylen revealed her office intervened to have Murray added to the shortlist of candidates for the role because she believed he was the “right person for the job”.
The documents, released through parliament on Wednesday, are likely to heap pressure on Haylen over her decision to hand-pick Murray for the role. They show Murray, who has a bachelor of arts majoring in communications, is set to receive a salary of $588,000 as transport boss.
They also reveal Murray was not listed as one of the candidates recommended for interview in the recruitment report, and show NGS Global warned that hiring him would be a “significant risk”.
The documents show Murray was initially classified as “under review or not recommended” by the recruitment firm, but that Haylen’s office intervened to have him interviewed.
However, despite that, the following day, Haylen’s chief of staff, Scott Gartrell, intervened to request that Murray be interviewed, saying the list of candidates was “underwhelming”.
“The short list below is pretty underwhelming! ... Josh Murray should be interviewed as well,” he wrote.
A month after the initial report and following Gartrell’s intervention, NGS Global was more complimentary, saying in a follow-up report that Murray was a “competent” executive who would be “very suitable” for the role. However, it continued to warn that hiring him would be a “significant risk” because of a lack of experience.
While he had made difficult decisions at the onset of the pandemic that enabled Laing O’Rourke to “restart more quickly than competitors”, he lacked experience for the job, the recruitment firm found.
“Josh has informed insights into how government works, from the perspective of both a Chief of Staff and a provider of services to government. He has not, however, had large-scale strategic, operational or people leadership experience, which would likely make his appointment to this role a significant risk,” NGS Global said.
Following the recruitment drive, the government set up a three-person panel to interview candidates for the job, comprising federal infrastructure department head Jim Betts, Department of Premier Secretary Peter Duncan and NSW Public Service Commissioner Kathrina Lo.
The panel found Murray would be “very suitable” for the role, but Colin, the former Transport Asset Holding Entity (TAHE) chief executive, would be “highly suitable”.
In a statement following the release of the documents, Haylen continued to defend Murray’s appointment, saying he had “years of experience at the top of Laing O’Rourke, coordinating a frontline workforce of 12,000 people across three continents”.
Haylen said the three-person panel, after its interviews, said she should meet Murray and Colin. She met both, but has refused to say whether the panel had recommended Murray as the preferred candidate.
“I got my preferred candidate,” she said in an interview with 2GB’s Chris O’Keefe last week.
The Herald has previously revealed Haylen met Murray just days after Labor won power at the March election.
The April 4 meeting – described as a “transport portfolio discussion” in ministerial diary disclosures – took place a week before the previous transport secretary Rob Sharp was sacked as part of a dramatic shake-up of the public service.
Haylen has insisted that the meeting was not an interview.
Last week, the Herald reported that Colin, a highly regarded senior bureaucrat, quit the public service after she missed out on the job.
After two years as the head of TAHE, Colin quit in July after applying for the secretary role. However, she insisted her departure was not related to Murray’s appointment.
“In July 2023, I resigned from my role as CEO for TAHE. It is time for new leadership to take the incredible people in this organisation forward on the next steps of its journey,” Colin told the Herald.
“My reasons for leaving TAHE are unrelated to the recruitment process or the appointment of the new secretary.”
The Herald has requested a response from Murray.
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