It is hard to start a conversation with Senator Dean Smith without noting that next year he will no longer face the colourful, outsize Sam Dastyari on the opposite benches.

Smith himself has made history in recent months. But the spectacular self-immolation of "Dasher" Dastyari brings an odd confession from him. "I see all these big personalities in politics ... and sometimes I wonder if I really belong there too," Smith says wistfully. But then, and he breaks into a smile, "it has been the year that the tortoises won the race".