Joe Hildebrand: A not-so-odd couple: Elliot and Claassens form a new alliance

David Elliott and Alex Claassens prove that a Liberal minister and a union boss can be productive allies – and they prefer each other over Treasurer Matt Kean, writes Joe Hildebrand.

It has been exactly a week since peace broke out in the NSW Liberal Party, which makes you wonder exactly what war would look like.

Fortunately the reliably pugnacious Transport Minister David Elliott was happy to remind us yesterday, when he fired yet another salvo at Treasurer Matt Kean on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald.

God I love this town.

But the best part is that the main reason Elliott is at war with Kean is because he is in fact a man of peace.

Elliott, a knockabout Western Sydney bloke whose parents were shop stewards, is furious because he brokered a deal with the rail union that would see an end to the rolling strikes and industrial action crippling the train network.

Transport workers union boss Alex Claassens and Transport Minister David Elliot are a not so odd couple. Much to the chagrin of Treasurer Matt Kean.

But it wasn’t honoured by Kean.

And this is the most interesting part of the whole story: Elliott is actually closer to RTBU secretary Alex Claassens than he is to his own cabinet colleague.

A fired up Minister of Transport David Elliot speaks to the media.

According to the conventional laws of nature this shouldn’t be – a union boss and someone from the right of the Liberal Party ought to be natural enemies.

But politics is rarely conventional and this is something that idiotic ideological cheer squads on social media fail to understand.

They think picking a political side is like picking a football team – you barrack for them and abuse whoever they are playing against. But real world politics is much more three-­dimensional and especially so when you are in government.

I have often said that all good ­governments end up looking the same because if you have intelligent and competent people of goodwill in power then they will inevitably gravitate to the same solutions to the problems that arise, regardless of which side of the political fence they hail from.

And this is what we have seen with Elliott’s relationship with Claassens.

Matt Kean showing his flare during Question Time.

RTBU NSW secretary Alex Classens. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Both are decent and intelligent and reasonable men. Critically, neither are one-eyed ideologues, with Claassens a former train driver steeped in the pragmatic tradition of Labor’s NSW Right and Elliott a former lobbyist and soldier.

Both are practical men familiar with navigating both the halls of power and the laws of the jungle that combine to make NSW politics.

Kean, by contrast, perhaps more wedded to ideological conviction than political need, was reportedly reluctant to stump up millions to fix a problem he didn’t believe existed and no doubt equally reluctant to give the RTBU a perceived win.

And so in this marriage of convenience between Elliott and Claassens it was the Treasurer sticking up his hand when the priest asked if anybody objected to the union — in both senses of the word.

The fact that the government has since backed down and Elliott has got his way, while handing out a complimentary bollocking on the way through, tells you all you need to know about how politics really works in this city.

But politics that makes strange bedfellows is in fact the best kind, and you can expect to see a few more supposedly unholy alliances on the workplace front when the Albanese government holds its much-touted Jobs Summit next month.

While much has been made of some of the sillier ambit claims of the ACTU, the real revelation will be just how in sync the PM and Treasurer will be with employer and business groups.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged that his government would be a friend of business and especially small business. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

Anthony Albanese made a point of explicitly and repeatedly pledging throughout the election campaign that his government would be a friend of business and especially small business.

There is no way he can embrace any policy settings that would do them harm.

Nor does he want to.

Not only did Albanese deliberately position himself as a more ­business-friendly alternative to Bill Shorten during the latter’s unfortunate ­flirtation with class war rhetoric, but he genuinely believes a moderate, centrist and consensus-based Labor Party is the natural government of mainstream Australia.

And the Prime Minister is already putting his money where his mouth is.

One of the biggest moves on the jobs and skills front has been for the government to dramatically increase migration to fill skills shortages – exactly in line with the pleas of business groups and hardly on the wishlist of unions.

Bill Shorten during Question Time in the House of Representatives in Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

And so you have a state Liberal government in alignment with unions and a federal Labor government in alignment with employers.

But while this might make simple-minded hardliners’ heads spin, this is actually exactly what citizens and taxpayers should want from their ­political leaders.

It ensures that the widest possible range of ideas are canvassed, the best ideas prevail and problems are met with the solutions that are of most benefit to most people.

It is also in stark contrast to the ­increased insularity that marked the latter days of the Morrison government – right up to the bizarre ­revelations that the former PM ­privately made himself minister for everything.

The narrower the consolidation of decision-making and power the more capacity there is for disaster – ­especially those disasters that are only discovered too late.

It is political mixed marriages rather than outspoken onanists that produce the best offspring. Strange bedfellows make good government.