‘Gutter Politics’

Three months since quitting parliament amid a donor scandal, former Labor Senator Sam Dastyari has joined Kyle and Jackie O as a regular guest, spilling the beans on all the dirt from parliament. 

With some prescience, radioinfo suggested that Dastyari might have a future in radio ahead of him while reporting on the Senate Inquiry into Public Interest Journalism back in August 2017. 

Dastyari will join KIIS FM breakfast co-hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson in a new segment, ‘Gutter Politics’, to discuss federal politics once a fortnight. 

Explaining how he was approached for the segment, Dastyari said: “Intern Pete calls me about a week ago and said can we go for a beer and discuss something… then he says Kyle and Jackie want to get an expert in on disgrace and failure, you’re the first person I thought of.”

After the laughter subsided, Dastyari moved on to political topics, telling this story:

“If you ever want to get the PM on, don’t mention the story about the dead pussycat,” said Dastyari during his first appearance.

“This is the famous story. Back in his youth, Malcolm Turnbull had this long-term girlfriend who broke up with him. She had a kitten named Nessie… When they broke up, Malcolm started writing love letters to the cat to try and win her back.”

He went on to read out one of the letters:

“Dear Nessie,
Tell your Miss that I love her very much. Tell her when I came to see her on Sunday and she wasn’t there, I cuddled you up and it broke my heart that it wasn’t her.
Tell her I know a lot about her current boyfriends. (They) will tell her not to see me.
They will stroke her back and tell her to forget me.
But Nessie, we know she never will, and you tell her, my little cat, how much we were in love.
All my love, Malcolm.”

The cat died not long after but the cause of death remains unknown.

“One version of the story says that it was strangled, and it was left on her doorstep,” Mr Dastyari said. “No one knows how it was strangled.”

Dastyari also shed some light on infidelity among politicians.

“There’s a lot of ruined marriages,” he said. “Life’s complicated, and I don’t want to judge them. I’m not going to name them. But there’s broken-up relationships, broken-up marriages.”

“I think there’s a real sadness to politics,” he said. “People in it tend to be really sad. They need to be loved, they need the admiration … and that drives you.”

Meanwhile, on Twitter, Dastyari provided ‘proof’ of the PM’s cat letter, while reactions to the new Gutter Politics segment ranged from comical to contemptuous:

And what of the other former performing pollie at that Senate Hearing, Nick Xenophon. After failing to win a seat in the South Australian state parliament he may be looking for a job too. Which radio station will pick him up?