NSW Labor machine man Sam Dastyari upgrades inner west family abode

Sam Dastyari, the state secretary of the NSW Labor machine, has upgraded homes.

He has paid $1.36 million for a four bedroom Russell Lea house.

Until recently the family lived at their Concord home – his wife, Helen, two large dogs (Sasha and Lulu), the three cats (named Lenin, Trotsky and Chairman Mao), and young daughter Hannah.

The 1920s two-bedroom John Street Concord house was sold for $900,000, having been bought by the couple for $820,000 in 2009. It failed to sell last November.

He reportedly runs an average of 70 kilometres a week – presumably now along the waterfront Henley Marine Drive – and works 12-hour days at Labor's Sussex Street headquarters.

Both addresses are in the Drummoyne state electorate and the Reid federal elecorate.

Dastyari courted Helen when she was working for then premier Morris Iemma in 2008. Her father is Peter Barron, the Labor guru who advised both Neville Wran and Bob Hawke.

His parents, Naser and Ella, were studying civil engineering in Tehran when they fell victim to an Islamist crackdown and were hounded from the northern Iranian village of Sari, where he was born.

The family migrated to Sydney when he was five.