Sam Dastyari: Labor's bright young man offers his China excuses

Many words, fewer answers as to why Sam Dastyari let someone else foot the bill.

Where is the elusive senator Sam Dastyari? The Australian website, yesterday:

Senator Dastyari, who is not generally known for avoiding the media spotlight, pulled out of an Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry event … last night.

Sir Percy Blakeney in Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel:

We seek him here, we seek him there,

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven? — Is he in hell?

That damned, elusive Pimpernel.

Found him! Dastyari offers his apologies in a 23-minute press conference, yesterday:

I should have made the payment myself and I should have reflected on that before doing so. And the fact that it was all disclosed and it is all declared doesn’t explain that.

And no, he’s not standing down from the frontbench. Dastyari on whether he has offered his resignation:

I didn’t offer it and it hasn’t been asked for.

Bill Shorten defending the wayward Dastyari’s passing a travel bill on to a Chinese company, yesterday:

(Dastyari is) a bright young man … I am prepared to give him a second chance because I think he can make a contribution to this country.

What about his backing Beijing in on South China Sea? More from Dastyari, yesterday:

I support the Labor Party position on the South China Sea … I am not aware of that being my exact words but if there is an instance where I have misspoken I was wrong. I support the Labor Party position … If I have misspoken on this issue in the past in this instance then I would have been wrong.

Dastyari urging closer ties with China, The Australian Financial Review, January 28, 2014:

Bishop and Abbott are overseeing a pivot in Australia’s foreign policy priorities wholly towards the US. I worry that this is guided more by a misplaced sense of Australian identity than by our future national interest … We should be strengthening our relationship with China … This is not the right time to choose one best friend.

Meanwhile the Opposition Leader is not so charitable about those on the other side. A post-poll Bill Shorten, July 4:

Mr Turnbull clearly doesn’t know what he is doing. Quite frankly, I think he should quit.

Shorten on Bronwyn Bishop’s own travel entitlement troubles, August 2 last year:

Everyone knows … that Bronwyn Bishop needs to go.

This would explain all the Jewish terrorists, then. Actor and director John Bell, ABC’s Q&A, Monday:

I’d be interested to see a production of The Merchant of Venice where you substituted the word “Muslim” for “Jew” and see how that would resonate … If someone abuses you for long enough, and spits on you for long enough, you’re going to be like a suicide bomber.

Surely a Shakespeare expert has read The Merchant of Venice, right? The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair, blog, yesterday:

Bell misses one important detail. In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock doesn’t kill anybody.

Does this make flyswatters micro-aggressions? Headline, Guardian Australia, yesterday:

Is it right to launch mass chemical warfare on Zika mosquitoes?