.
A one-month trip to Sydney in May, after he had been in London for three months, was priced at $16,000. Accommodation costs were $68,437, while $20,172 was spent on “miscellaneous” expenses that included newspaper subscriptions and travel. “I had to deliver some hard messages to the candidate, [that] some of the conversations that had happened previously weren’t going to turn out to be the reality.”
Brown said she had conversations with then-premier Gladys Berejiklian and then-treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s offices because she thought a “salary that high for any public service role is ridiculous”. “He said, you know, we haven’t had anyone in country for a long time and let’s make sure we choose someone of high calibre.”
Brown said her negotiations with Cartwright felt “threatening” when they continued into October, after Perrottet had become premier.