The only downside to Sam Dastyari's decision to step down as a Senator is it may have come too late to give federal Labor the boost it needs to seize Bennelong off the Liberals at this weekend's by-election.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
If he had jumped or been pushed last week that may have created enough space for the affair to stop being a major distraction to Kristina Keneally's bid to wrest the seat, once famously lost to Labor by John Howard in 2007, from John Alexander.
That is no longer the case. And, given Ms Keneally is now being touted as a possible replacement for Mr Dastyari in the Senate in the event she does not get up in Bennelong, it is actually the worst of both worlds. It is never a good look to go into an election campaign waving a highly visible "plan B" at the voters.
Mr Dastyari's belated departure also highlights a serious lack of leadership by Bill Shorten.
The Opposition Leader, as much a prisoner of Labor's factional divides as any of his recent predecessors, should have pressed Mr Dastyari to depart when he first learned the former senator had been less than honest when the Chinese connection flared up 18 months ago.
The emergence of a recording of Mr Dastyari's remarks on the South China Sea, which clearly contradicted both Australian and ALP policy, and the disclosure he had warned high profile political donor and alleged Chinese "influencer", Xiangmo Huang, he could be under surveillance were damning.
Instead Mr Shorten chose to keep Mr Dastyari on, apparently hoping the holiday break and the emergence of new issues would move the mess off the top of the news cycle.
Instead the revelations got worse. By Monday afternoon many senior figures in the ALP had had enough.
When Kim Beazley is saying there is no longer a spot for you on the party's Senate benches you have nowhere to run and no place to hide.
One of the most damning revelations involved the allegation Mr Dastyari brought pressure to bear on the then shadow foreign affairs spokeswoman Tania Plibersek to abandon a meeting with a pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong in 2015.
Given their respective ranks at the time it would be fair to assume Ms Plibersek had a better idea of what constituted ALP policy and Australia's national interest than Mr Dastyari who, not to put to fine a point on it, seemed more concerned about Beijing's views than his own party's.
Tuesday's resignation caps off what has been a particularly bad couple of weeks for the ALP which, up until then, was clearly ahead on points for the year.
If the Liberals hold Bennelong this weekend, and the expectation is it will go down to the wire, then Mr Turnbull will end 2017 on a major high. Who would have thought a by-election could turn out to be so interesting?
