The John Barilaro affair has stripped the shine off NSW’s hardman premier Dominic Perrottet | Anne Davies

His handling of this crisis, which led to the resignation of his deputy Stuart Ayres, has colleagues questioning whether he has the right stuff under pressure

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The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, looked stressed as he fronted the media on Wednesday to announce that his deputy Liberal leader and trade minister, Stuart Ayres had agreed to resign from the ministry.

The scandal over the appointment of the former Nationals leader, John Barilaro, to a $500,000-per-year trade job in New York (that he created before leaving parliament) has festered for six weeks and stripped the shine off a premier who is yet to celebrate 12 months in office.