Will Gillard's old hands surpass Rudd whiz kids?

WHEN Alister Jordan was Kevin Rudd's chief of staff, ministers would rush up beside him in the Parliament House corridors to open doors just to get a word with him.

Jordan was gatekeeper to a hard-to-access prime minister.

Now Jordan has had doors in the business community opened for him by one of Rudd's political opponents - opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey.

Hockey confirmed to The Australian that he had acted as a referee to the former wunderkind staffer for his job application with Wesfarmers, where he is now a senior manager of strategic projects in the insurance division.

Jordan would not return calls from The Australian, but Hockey confirmed the pair got to know each other when Jordan was advising Rudd as opposition foreign spokesman during his sparring sessions with Hockey on the Seven Network's Sunrise program. When in the same city, they would often have breakfast together after these appearances.

By acting as a referee, Hockey was prepared to vouch for Jordan's character. Sources inside Wesfarmers say Hockey's name showed that Jordan was respected "across the party divide". Jordan, 31, who had spent his entire career as Rudd's right hand man, along with two other advisers in their early 30s - press secretary Lachlan Harris and senior economics adviser Andrew Charlton - were criticised for their inexperience during the final months of the Rudd reign. Jordan's act of ringing backbenchers to check they remained loyal to his boss just days before the coup was seen as an act of treachery by Julia Gillard's supporters.

While Jordan has moved into a post-political career, Charlton and Harris are taking their time. Charlton has been overseas pondering his future while Harris was called back to help "manage" Rudd's media on the campaign trail after the week-two cabinet leaks that so badly damaged the Prime Minister's campaign.

There is speculation that Harris, of the Harris Farm supermarket family, is open to a media advisory role with the government, but he has made no commitments. It is not unusual for former prime ministerial advisers to stay in the political game. Of John Howard's gang of three - Arthur Sinodinos, Tony Nutt and Tony O'Leary - only Sinodinos, Howard's long-time chief of staff, has left politics for a corporate career. He is a senior manager with NAB, although he also fulfils the role of organisational treasurer for the Liberal Party in NSW. Nutt, who spent most of the Howard term as principal private secretary, is now the Liberal state director in Victoria. O'Leary was called back into politics by Tony Abbott when he assumed the leadership as his director of communications, where he remains.

While the early stages of Gillard's prime ministership have been rocky, marred by missteps such as the citizens' assembly and the reworking of the new ministry after it was announced, her advisers are older and wiser than the young guns Rudd relied on - more akin to team Howard.

Gillard's chief of staff is Amanda Lampe, who is approaching her mid-40s. A former journalist and press secretary for former NSW premier Bob Carr, Lampe has political experience, although it is believed she was behind the widely criticised decision to break up the education portfolio three ways.

With parliament back this week, team Gillard will get it's first major chance to prove its wares in the new post-election paradigm.