The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. It's a phrase attributed - somewhat ironically, given the events of this week - to the ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi, father of Taoism.

It certainly describes Labor's backroom wunderkinds over the past decade. Karl Bitar, Mark Arbib, Paul Howes – once leading luminaries of the NSW Right, their political stars rose quickly and fell even faster.

Now Sam Dastyari, a successor to Bitar and Arbib as NSW Labor general secretary, has crashed and burned just months into his frontbench stint. And the question has to be asked: why are these bright flames burning out?

"The culture they come from is intensely corrosive," says one Left MP intimately familiar with Sussex Street. "If you're not grounded in values, you're doomed from the start. You don't have anything to fall back on when you hit adversity."