The New South Wales premier, Mike Baird, is constantly showing his friend and colleague Tony Abbott a more inclusive way to run a Liberal government. If only the prime minister would listen.

Here are two men who are both creatures of the NSW Liberal party, with overlapping seats on Sydney’s north shore, and yet their governments are like chalk and cheese.

With the announcement to implement the country’s most generous transport concessions for asylum seekers, Baird has provided more compassionate leadership on the issue when the world is grappling with the biggest movement of people across borders since the second world war.

It is true that state governments do not have to decide on Australian entry policies for asylum seekers – a far more thorny issue.

But states are responsible for providing all the asylum seeker services once they arrive in the country. And it is also true that in total budget terms, travel concessions do add up to a lot of money.

But leadership is all.

And it is here that Baird ensures his government sends a far more inclusive message to the wider population about the need for cohesion rather than division when dealing with what he refers to as “some of the most vulnerable” in our society.



Contrast that with Abbott’s “us and them” language.

The old political wisdom that governments would be punished for anything other than the toughest approach towards refugees is being challenged by the Baird government.

Two months before the NSW election, Baird suggested Tony Abbott do more to help refugees at an Australia Day lunch in January. Australia was a “lucky country”, said Baird, and we should “open our arms to those around the world who are much less fortunate than us”.

Incidentally, he also took a big economic reform – the sale of the electricity network – to an election without flinching, proving change is possible to sell.

Last month, NSW became the first state to sign up in principle to the federal safe haven enterprise visa (Shev) scheme, which gives people assessed to be refugees the opportunity to gain five-year visas if they are prepared to work or study outside cities.

At that time, Baird said the state was ready to take “more than their fair share” of refugees.

And on same-sex marriage – another issue which commentators have suggested would be a killer for conservative governments – Baird supported a motion for a free vote.

The election (and, I suspect, a four-year fixed term) has given Baird confidence to reveal a different form of Liberal government from that of the federal Coalition.

Baird proves you don’t have to be hard to be popular.