‘Foolhardy and unrealistic’: the world according to NSW Agent-General Stephen Cartwright

NSW’s $600,000 man-about-town in London, Stephen Cartwright, has an interesting history of contributions to public policy in that state.

Cartwright — classified as a “problem” by Premier Dominic Perrottet — clearly thinks highly of himself: for the role of NSW agent-general in London, Cartwright demanded $800,000 a year. That’s nearly twice as much as the premier earns and more than twice as much as the Commonwealth’s high commissioner earns.

Despite encouragement from Gladys Berejiklian’s chief of staff that Cartwright be given a massive wad of money, he eventually had to make do with just $600,000 a year after negotiations with Investment NSW head Amy Brown in which he threatened to take the pay dispute to the premier.

Fortunately, he has a generous expenses account — he’s racked up more than $100,000 in just nine months, including for a doubtless much-needed trip back to Sydney after just three months in Blighty.

Cartwright won the London gig after a lengthy stint as CEO of Business NSW, the more recent name for what long existed under the rather fusty title of NSW Business Chamber.

Keen-eyed readers may be able to spot a certain tension between Cartwright’s attitude to his new gig, and his observations about the state’s workers while representing the peak lobby group of NSW business.

While Cartwright thought he could take his dispute over pay straight to the state premier, as head of Business NSW he objected strongly in 2019 to federal Labor’s plan to establish a wage theft tribunal, saying it would deluge employers with greedy workers looking to “double-dip”. It would be a “no-risk casino” for workers, apparently.

Not at all like getting a job with the NSW government, then.

Cartwright doesn’t seem to have been especially fond of workers, it has to be said. In 2013 he railed against them taking sickies before a long weekend. “It’s an obvious stunt that only serves to damage personal reputations and morale in the workplace,” Cartwright lectured. “Nobody is fooled by the Friday ‘sickie’.”

Cop that, bludgers. 

The following year he noted that many welfare recipients didn’t want to work.

Cartwright’s one big contribution to public debate was in 2019, when he proposed that business be allowed to move workers on to a “perma-flexi” category whereby they would face permanent “flexible” rostering. He was horrified by Labor’s proposal to enable casual workers to apply to move to permanent status, even though employers could refuse them. He wanted “less interference from the nanny state in the employment relationship, not more”.

Cartwright also applauded when the O’Farrell government slashed workers’ compensation, including ending journey-to-work claims and capping compensation. The people of NSW should be “very pleased”, he declared — presumably right up until they got injured on the way to work. To his credit, Cartwright later changed position after the scandalous failures of Icare became apparent under Perrottet’s treasurership, prompting him to call for an urgent inquiry into the failed government insurer.

Cartwright also opposed climate action, railing at the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme in 2013, suggesting “the notion that Australia, as one of the smallest carbon emitters, can be the leader on this issue is foolhardy and unrealistic”.

Among Cartwright’s other contributions were traditional business lobbyist positions such as support for fracking, support for higher immigration and loathing of penalty rates. He was also outraged when then senator Rex Patrick dared to use corporate tax data to call out CEOs of companies that failed to pay tax, lamenting it had “the potential to mislead citizens about the transparency and integrity of highly visible business leaders in this country”.

Ah — transparency. Cartwright had views on that, too. Early on his time at the Business Chamber he was moved to anger by NSW ICAC’s proposal to improve transparency around lobbying — including a cooling-off period for former ministers and staffers, meeting diaries for lobbying meetings with ministers, and an expansive lobbying register.

These are all now standard requirements for lobbying in NSW and have been in place for years, providing some much-needed transparency around who is trying to sway NSW ministers. The Perrottet government recently decided to expand them still further.

But it was a different story for Cartwright. The changes were an “assault on the ability of community organisations to interact with government” and would just lead to more red tape, he reckoned.

Given recent events, it seems unlikely Cartwright has grown any fonder of transparency.