Craig Thompson

This jerk just well, continues to be a jerk. His latest excuse.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/craig-thomson-plans-to-claim-spoofing-to-blame-for-his-prostitute-woes/story-e6freooo-1226358765006


They cloned my phone: Craig Thomson's new excuse for prostitute woes

by: By Malcolm Farr
From:news.com.au
May 17, 2012



FORMER Labor MP Craig Thomson plans to claim his mobile phone was hacked when he defends himself against allegations he called an escort service in 2005 and 2007.

Craig Thomson will deliver his critical speech for the defence to Parliament on Monday.

News.com.au has learned a top Sydney criminal barrister advised the controversial independent MP on how someone could call a third party and make it appear the call came from his mobile.

Mr Thomson is expected to use the advice in his address, which is expected to last for 15 to 30 minutes and could decide his fate as MP for Dobell.

The Fair Work Australia report on Mr Thomson's spending while national secretary of the Health Services Union produced explosive detail of telephone calls apparently originating from his mobile phone.


Were the phantom menaces pulling his trouser zip down as well?

Lets not forget, that Thomson as secretary approved all payments on his card, he had no problem then, what has changed, if he knew that those transactions were illegal, he should have contacted the Bank who issued the card and put a stop on card, and he should have called the police to investigate

You have got to wonder, was this planned, no wonder it took so long


Thomson case could be out of time



Lenore Taylor
May 17, 2012 Read later
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"AEC report clearly show FWA got it wrong on electoral expenses" ... Craig Thomson's tweet. Photo: Nick Moir

FAIR WORK AUSTRALIA'S legal action against Craig Thomson could be thrown out because the statute of limitations has been exceeded, according to two leading workplace lawyers.

At the very least, the Fair Work action could be delayed while an appeal is heard in a case that sets a precedent on the statute of limitations issue, according to the Sydney barrister Jim Pearce and the Adelaide University workplace law expert Andrew Stewart. That appeal will be heard in August.

Mr Pearce said in a recent article that a decision of the Federal Magistrates Court in a case between the Fair Work Ombudsman and Toyota Material Handling had confirmed there was a two-year statute of limitations for actions under the former Workplace Relations Act. The FWA report found Mr Thomson may have breached this act when he was the Health Services Union national secretary between 2002 and 2007.



Mr Stewart said: ''On the face of it, these proceedings are out of time. It will be up to the Federal Court to decide.''

Even if Mr Thomson is found to have breached the act, he could face fines, but would not be legally required to leave Parliament. Disqualification could only occur if he was found guilty of criminal charges as a result of police investigations under way in two states.

The possible failure or delay to the Fair Work action comes as the Australian Electoral Commission announced yesterday that findings against Mr Thomson in the Fair Work report were unlikely to involve any breaches of the electoral act.

The commission concludes that most of the electoral spending discussed in the Fair Work report had been disclosed by the union, or by Mr Thomson, and the four payments still under question fell below the reporting threshold.

After the commission published its findings, Mr Thomson tweeted: ''AEC report clearly shows FWA got it wrong on electoral expenses. Wonder how widely that gets reported!''

The Greens will move next week to have a Senate committee look at their idea for a national integrity commissioner to help rebuild public confidence in Parliament.

And the commission's conclusions and the long timeframes and uncertainties surrounding legal action against Mr Thomson have put the spotlight back on moves for the parliamentary committee of privileges to investigate Mr Thomson's failure to declare Labor's payment of his legal bills.

The Coalition will refer Mr Thomson to the privileges committee next week with a view to having him suspended from Parliament for failing twice to declare on the register of pecuniary interests that his legal fees were being paid by the ALP. But the committee is dominated by Labor, comprising six ALP members, the independent Tony Windsor and four Coalition MPs.

The manager of opposition business, Christopher Pyne, said he would expect impartiality and ''a fair and proper inquiry to be conducted''.

with Phillip Coorey

Oh jeez. The lunatics are running the asylum.

Everyone grip your crotch and wave your tax payer funded credit card.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/mp-craig-thomson-denies-a-current-affair-escorts-claims/story-e6freonf-1226366086658


Tony Abbott calls for Craig Thomson to resign

by: By Simon Benson
From: AAP
May 24, 2012


FEDERAL Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has taken his attack on Craig Thomson to a new level, using parliament to call for the MP's resignation just hours after the former union leader appealed to be left alone.

Mr Thomson had urged the coalition to let nine separate inquiries and pending court action involving the Health Services Union (HSU), and related allegations he misused union funds while its national secretary, take their course.

"Is this about trying to push someone to the brink?" he said in Canberra.

Mr Thomson acknowledged the allegations need to be pursued.

"But I think nine investigations probably does it," he said.

The member for the NSW seat of Dobell has been under pressure since he rose in federal parliament on Monday to defend himself against the findings of a Fair Work Australia (FWA) investigation report on the HSU.

In parliament, Mr Abbott again pursued Prime Minister Julia Gillard for failing to explain whether she believed Mr Thomson - who is suspended from the Labor party but still votes with the minority Labor government - or the FWA findings. "At a human level I have a great deal of sympathy for the member for Dobell," Mr Abbott said.

"We have no sympathy, though, for a government and for a prime minister who have put him in this position by insisting that he remain in the parliament when the honourable course of action for him would be to resign."

Mr Abbott has called for Mr Thomson's resignation before, but not in parliament.

Leader of the House Anthony Albanese said Mr Abbott's call was a clear breach of parliamentary rules, but Deputy Speaker Anna Burke let Mr Abbott continue. Earlier this week, WA Liberal backbencher Mal Washer, who is a qualified doctor, said Mr Thomson was under immense emotional pressure and warned his colleagues to tread carefully.

The coalition this week challenged the content of Mr Thomson's 58-minute statement and successfully referred the matter to the powerful house privileges committee, which will examine if he mislead parliament.

Mr Thomson, who was HSU national secretary from 2002 until his election in 2007, is also facing inquiries from police, the electoral commission and the tax office.

Tony, mate, good luck. Save us from LABOR.

This is all about Gillards accuman, she has none, and will unfortunately destroy Labor in the process, and I say unfortunately, because when Abbott gets into power, we need and deserve a strong opposition, which we won't have

Comedy of errors ends in tears for the believers




Simon Benson Blog



Simon Benson

Thursday, May 24, 2012(6:39pm)




IT’S good to know that politicians can maintain a sense of humour during times of crisis.


One Labor MP offered this interesting take on the Craig Thomson affair this week: “It’s all part of our strategy to lull Tony Abbott into a false sense of security.”

Another suggested the last four days in parliament had in fact been a booming success for the government. The more the opposition talks about Craig Thomson, the less the government has to talk about the carbon tax.

To borrow a refashioned metaphor from Julia’s Gillard’s own electorate, the PM is in more poop than a Werribee duck.

It’s hard to see how the government can recover from this. If any lesson has been learned from NSW, it’s that people are willing to forgive a certain level of incompetence, even a broken promise or two, but they draw the line at a stench of corruption and sleaze. And the parliament is now reeking with it.

This week, while Europe debated its future, the Australian parliament has been paralysed by nonsense over whether the Coalition can get the words hooker and Labor read into Hansard.Both sides are to blame. Tony Abbott has tried to suspend question time almost every sitting day since the 2010 election. He has put, and lost, 57 censure motions or suspensions. As Gillard pointed out yesterday, 31 hours of question time have been wasted. But the government has been no better. It has countered with gagging him at every opportunity and running down the clock to avoid issues it doesn’t like being debated.

Public confidence in the parliament has been trashed. And so has confidence that the Prime Minister is capable of managing yet another political disaster for the government.

Support in caucus for Gillard to remain as leader will not last much longer. The past week has seen her position deteriorate further.

The PM is aware that a plan has now been drawn up by a significant bloc of MPs to replace her and some of those she had previously relied on for support are in on it.

But there is a missed opportunity for the PM in all of this.Craig Thomson and the HSU have unwittingly handed Gillard a once-in-a-generation shot at fixing Labor’s institutional problems. She now has the perfect trigger to structurally separate the party from the union movement.

It’s not a radical idea. Bob Hawke, a man who has served as both prime minister and leader of the union movement, has called for finally severing the political wing with the industrial wing as the only chance for the party’s electoral future.

Labor governments have in the past been able to distance themselves from scandals like the HSU affair. Bob Carr survived two very similar scandals with unions when he was NSW premier.

Few people outside NSW would remember a certain National Union of Workers boss found to have spent around $1300 from his union credit card on hookers back in 1988, at the famous Sydney establishment A Touch of Class. He was forced to resign in 2003.

One bad egg, they said at the time, spoiling the cake.

The Municipal Employees Union, which later became the United Services Union, had been up to it as well. In 1998, an audit by KPMG raised questions about $180,000 the union spent on two national conferences in the mid-90s - one held at Penrith Panthers and another at Coffs Harbour. An inquiry heard that $40,000 had been unaccounted for, and appeared to have been spent on strippers and prostitutes in what could only be justified as some sort of coital relief from the boredom of their national conference.The scandal surrounding the HSU isn’t the first to rock the bruvvers. But the Thomson affair - or at least its public outing - started the wrong way around: after Thomson left the union and became an MP. The Gillard government was infected with it from the beginning.

What is worse is that it knew about it. And it has failed to deal with it to anyone’s satisfaction.There has been plenty of talk about ending the union gerrymander - namely its dominance over party conference and policy-making within the party and the requirement that every Labor MP be a member of an affiliated union. But the action so far has been tokenistic.

The reality is Gillard is unlikely to take it further, for two reasons. The first is that she is too occupied dealing with enemies within her own ranks. The other is that Gillard can’t afford to make enemies of the union officials who remain, for the time being, her benefactors.

The twisted irony is that so much electoral damage has been done by a union that union members are just about all Julia Gillard has left.

Abbott doesn't have to anything.

let them implode all on their own. They're doing a damn good job IMO.