No assurances, no option but for Sam Dastyari to resign

Senator Sam Dastyari in Sydney yesterday. Picture: John Fotiadis

It was made clear to Sam Dastyari late yesterday that he had no choice but to resign from the frontbench position Bill Shorten had awarded him just seven weeks ago.

After Dastyari was unable to assure the Opposition Leader in multiple conversations yesterday that he could guarantee there would not be any more embarrassing revelations, he volunteered the resignation that he had resisted offering just 24 hours earlier.

His foolish decision to ask a company with links to the Chinese government to pay a $1670 bill for staff travel exposed a culture of associations with Chinese donors and claims of “cash for comment” that undermined Labor’s foreign policy.

There is no doubt Dastyari is very sorry for his “mistake” but his seat on the frontbench as Shorten’s hand-picked man was more than a distraction as it became a question of the leader’s judgment.

Even after standing down, Dastyari has still not answered the central question behind the whole imbroglio to explain how he came to feel comfortable enough to ask the Top Education Institute to pay his bill. It remains a question he must answer if he hopes to rise again.

The affair has paralysed the opposition and threatened to derail Shorten’s plans to use next week’s one-year anniversary of Malcolm Turnbull’s rise to power to portray the Prime Minister as a “do-nothing” leader. It was Shorten who faced the counter-attack that he was doing nothing about Dastyari.

As Shorten’s attack dog against banks and big business, Dastyari’s questionable dealings muzzled him and blunted Labor’s crusade for a banking royal commission.

The questions about this curious affair must not stop with Dastyari’s downfall. How deep is Chinese soft power, influence and infiltration in our political system?