Sam Dastyari: ‘junior’ senator who turned into giant headache

For a man who was reduced to ‘junior ­senator’, Sam Dastyari was proving to be a monumental political headache.

‘It would have been better for Bill to keep him on his team if possible’: Bill Shorten and Sam Dastyari last year.

For a man whose stature Bill Shorten reduced to “junior ­senator”, Sam Dastyari was proving to be a monumental political headache.

He was the migraine that wouldn’t go away.

Just when Labor’s federal leader felt his campaign to become prime minister was reinvigorated after a better-than-expected election result, and bumbling on Malcolm Turnbull’s part, the Dastyari donations scandal was sabotaging all the effort.

But Dastyari, the “bright young fellow” promoted to the Labor frontbench and manager of opposition business in the Senate, was doing more than sucking the oxygen out of Shorten’s political balloon.

The continuing scandal over his behaviour in accepting thousands of dollars from companies with links to China’s Communist Party to pay personal debts was shining an unwelcome light on the way Labor was perceived to do business — especially in NSW, where the Right-dominated ­machine is historically the make-or-break of party leaders.

Dastyari has now quit his frontbench spot, acknowledging that his public apology a day ear­lier was insufficient.

Many at a senior level in the ALP are relieved. They were dismayed at Dastyari’s obvious failure — at his supposed “ask-me-anything” news conference on Tuesday — to answer why he ­accepted payments for travel and legal bills from Chinese interests.

They were dismayed at his ­inability to explain why — after accepting Chinese money — he lent public support to Beijing’s claims over the South China Sea with statements that were so clearly at odds with a bipartisan foreign ­policy.

What bothered them most was the damage Dastyari was doing if he continued to hang on.

As each day passed with more details emerging of the financial transactions, the hypocrisy of a young senator who railed against corporate greed only reinforced ugly perceptions that individuals with power in the ALP were possibly intent first and foremost on using connections to benefit themselves.

From accepting a $1670 payment to cover an excess travel bill to a $40,000 payment to settle a legal dispute, there was a lot to suggest that this was “normalised” culture inside the modern ALP.

As one senior figure put it, the optics were terrible. A company called Top Education Institute, headed by former Chinese national Minshen Zhu, had been a big party donor going back to ­Dasty­ari’s pre-Senate days, when he headed the NSW party machine. Now, it seemed, the company was willing to pay Dastyari direct.

A similar thing applied to Yuhu Group, the Sydney-based proper­ty development company headed by Huang Xiangmo, another ­former Chinese national with links to the communist regime and a local public presence as president of the pro-Beijing Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China.

But there the Labor connect­ions ran deeper.

While Mr Huang is Yuhu Group’s chairman, the deputy chairman is no less than Eric Roozendaal, the former NSW Labor government treasurer and one of Dastyari’s predecessors as boss of the NSW party head office.

Among colleagues, Roozendaal prefers to go by another title at Yuhu.

He is the “chief executive” of this North Sydney-based outfit with interests in residential apartments and a shopping centre at Eastwood, in the city’s northwest.

Another former ALP NSW boss, Jamie Clements, who ­resigned from his position earlier this year in disgrace after sexual harassment allegations, is report­ed to have managed a soft landing with part-time work at Yuhu.

Dastyari talks to a lot of people, among them Roozendaal and ­Clements. As questions mounted about how and why he would ­receive a $40,000 handout from this company to settle a legal bill, one was obvious: Did Huang pay the money after learning from his ex-Labor fellow colleagues that Dastyari needed to settle a debt?

Dastyari’s Chinese connect­ions, some of them possibly ­uncomfortable in present circumstances, rolled on.

The diminutive senator is known to be close to Bob Carr, the former NSW Labor premier and foreign minister in the Gillard ­government. Carr is now professor of international relations at the University of Technology, Sydney, and the director of the Australia-China Relations Institute.

He is widely regarded in Labor circles as a “China lobbyist”. It was Huang who donated $1.8 million to establish Carr’s ­institute.

Dastyari was just 12 years old, a young Iranian immigrant growing up in western Sydney in modest circumstances with his parents, when Carr led NSW Labor to victory in 1995. He was 22, a whippersnapper rising through the ranks of Young Labor, when Carr ended his unbeaten decade-long reign as premier.

But the pair became very close when Carr succeeded Kevin Rudd as Gillard’s foreign minister. The plan to make Carr foreign minister was hatched by Dastyari and his then friend, Paul Howes from the Australian Workers Union. ­Gillard accepted the plan — even if she later regretted it.

As Carr details in Diary of a ­Foreign Minister, the young Dasty­ari was there at his side to lend ­support on international debates over China and Palestine. As Carr writes, it was Dastyari who ­arranged a Chinese New Year fundraiser at Sydney’s Shangri-La Hotel in 2013 that raised $200,000.

The proceeds were split between Labor head office, and a Dastyari ally in NSW, Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen.

In this wheels-within-wheels world, it is worth noting that Dastyari was ­believed to be backing Bowen as Shorten’s possible successor when Shorten was doing badly early this year. Bowen was the recipient of a legitimate donation in 2013 but, like it or not, his name was drawn into the donations saga once things turned bad for Dastyari. Bowen may still face questions over China trips.

Dastyari’s rise to NSW party secretary at the age of 27 in 2010 was swift, despite his many years of association with the party by that stage. He was acclaimed as a brilliant networker with remarkable energy. But above all Dastyari was the beneficiary of luck.

The job of ALP secretary had been a revolving door. Mark Arbib left for the Senate, and Karl Bitar for the ALP’s national office. Both moved on voluntarily — but not Matt Thistlethwaite. His brief reign ended in a coup when the Labor Right did not like the way he handled the job. Dastyari, only recently ­promoted to assistant party secretary after a short time as ­organiser, was elevated to the top job. It was widely agreed he helped stabilise the party — but he soon changed his mind about becoming a long-termer and headed for the Senate.

The Dastyari saga is viewed ­inside Labor as a disaster, but his decision to quit now could save his career. Meanwhile, Shorten may need to be careful. As one senior Labor figure put it: “Dastyari on the backbench will be angry, disillusioned and may feel betrayed. It’s a classic scenario where it would have been better for Bill to keep him on his team if possible.”