Sam Dastyari should be 'out of the Senate now', Turnbull says

The resignation of the Labor senator Sam Dastyari has triggered a fresh offensive between the major parties, with Malcolm Turnbull insisting he needs to get out of the Senate immediately, and Bill Shorten saying the departure will happen after Dastyari has cleared his decks.

With both leaders now engaged in a ferocious battle on the ground for Saturday’s Bennelong byelection, given the result will determine whether or not the Turnbull government can govern in majority, Turnbull blasted Dastyari for not resigning with immediate effect.

“He’s still taking money from the taxpayers of the country that he put second. He did not put Australia first,” the prime minister said Wednesday. “He should be out of the Senate now”.

Shorten rebuffed the attack by saying Turnbull was trying to extend the shelf-life of the Dastyari controversy for political purposes.

The Labor leader said the New South Wales senator would “sooner rather than later ... wrap up his matters”. Shorten said Dastyari had staff to deal with, and electorate work to complete, and “he can’t just leave punters in the lurch”.

The Labor leader also referenced the amount of time other parliamentarians had taken to exit the scene after indicating the would resign, including the Liberal senator Michael Ronaldson, who departed in 73 days, and Chris Back, who departed in 46 days.

Shorten also counselled the prime minister to tone down his rhetoric on China. “It’s one thing for Turnbull to pursue a politician’s agenda against another politician, and I wish that Senator Dastyari hadn’t given him the ammunition to do some of those attacks.”

He said Turnbull needed to chose his words carefully because he spoke for Australia.

“I know you’re worried by Kristina Keneally in Bennelong,” he said. “Remember, when you speak, you represent Australia on the world stage.”

Shorten said the prime minister was “more interested in his own day-to-day survival than Australia’s future relationships in Asia but I think they’ve gone overboard now”.

The Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese noted that Dastyari had paid “a heavy price” for the rolling controversy about his linkages with Chinese political donors and he said Liberal MPs had cases to answer.

“There are still people sitting in the House of Reps and the Senate who received donations from Huang Xiangmo,” he said.

“Some hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone to the WA Liberal party for example that this week. We found out that a notice had gone out asking people to attend a fundraiser for the Liberal party where the guest speakers weren’t Liberal party ministers or shadow ministers, they were representatives of the Chinese government – so I think there are real questions to be asked there”.

Albanese said the issue had been settled by Dastyari’s decision to quit politics but he lamented his departure.

“Sam was a colourful figure,” he said. “I think we need more colourful figures in politics.”

“I think one of the things about Sam was that he took things on. There was no first, second or third gear, it was always fourth or overdrive and that obviously created some issues with Sam’s judgment and he has paid a price for that.”

It is not yet clear who will replace Dastyari in the Senate but it is possible he could be replaced by Kristina Keneally if she loses in Bennelong this Saturday.

With the government zeroing in on that prospect, suggesting the former NSW premier is seat-shopping, Keneally has downplayed the prospect of moving into the vacated Senate seat. “Let me be clear – I’ve been offered Senate seats before by Labor and I’ve turned them down,” she said Tuesday.