An Iranian who has been active in Labor Party politics in Australia has just been named to fill a vacancy in the Australian federal Senate.
Sam Dastyari was born in Sari near the Caspian in 1983 and came to Australia with his parents when he was four years old in 1988.
He lives in New South Wales, the largest state in Australia, holding about one-third of the country 23 million people.
He has not held elective office before. Last week, the parliament of New South Wales elected him a senator to fill a vacancy created when the incumbent senator resigned to run for a seat in the House of Representatives in the September 7 federal elections.
Senators are elected by the people in Australia, but vacancies are filled by the state legislatures. Dastyari will hold his seat in the 76-member Senate for the remainder of the term until June 2017.
Dastyari is viewed as a Labor Party power broker, despite his tender age of just 29. He played a role in toppling Kevin Rudd from leadership of the federal party a few years and elevating Julia Gillard to the leadership, and also played a role in toppling Gillard several weeks ago and returning Rudd to the Party leadership and to the prime ministry.
Foreign Minister Bob Carr, a former premier of New South Wales, described Dastyari as a “great talent.”
But the election campaign spokesman for the opposition Coalition, Christopher Pyne, said Dastyari was “the ultimate Labor machine man.”
Australia used to be a fairly insular country of exclusively British and Irish background. But in the last half century, the country has changed dramatically and become an immigrant society like the United States and Canada.
The current premier of New South Wales is Marie Bashir, whose parents migrated from Lebanon. And hours after Dastyari became the first Iranian-born member of parliament in Australia, the parliament in neighboring Victoria state elected Mehmet Tillem to fill another vacancy in the Senate and become the first Turkish-born Australian member of parliament.
Dastyari’s father is Iranian and his mother is an Azeri ethnic. His biography says his parents were student activists who were forced to flee Iran during a regime crackdown.
He joined the Labor Party when he was 16 and was active in student Labor Party affairs, rising quickly to become a member of party’s National Executive council.
He lives near Sydney with his wife, Helen Barron, and their daughter Hannah.