John Barilaro (inset) in an alleged scuffle with a cameraman in Manly.
The former deputy premier told 2GB the following Monday morning that he had been “intruded on and harassed” since his controversial appointment to a $500,000-a-year trade commissioner post in New York became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.
Barilaro was appointed but then quit,and has been the subject of a weeks-long inquiry into his appointment and the role he played in recruiting another trade envoy to London.
“To come out and have a camera shoved in your face. I’m a private citizen. I left politics last year ... I was confronted in the dark out the front of a bar. If that was you,how would you respond? All I did was push a camera out of my way. I did not manhandle an individual,” Barilaro said at the time.
Lawyer Mark Davis,from Xenophon Davis,who is acting for the cameraman said they will seek compensation via a civil case because their client had his back twisted in the alleged scuffle and had his camera “severely damaged and it is now inoperable”.
Davis also said his client had been on the painkiller endone for three weeks and had not been able to work,so they will be seeking compensation for that.
“He’s a freelance cameraman and this has been a serious blow to him to have it[the camera] damaged,” Davis said.