Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to refer the chamber to an interview by Michael Smith from 2UE with the member for Dobell, Craig Thomson, on Monday, 1 August. I suggest that anyone who needs some good, hearty reading go and get a copy of this interview and have a very close look at it. I will just take the chamber through some of the matters in this interview:

Smith: OK. Did you take the matter to the police if you believe the credit card was used improperly, did you go and report it to the police?

Thomson: The union reached a settlement with another gentleman who paid back $15,000 in relation to use of credit cards at an escort agency.

Over the weekend what did we hear from the former Victorian Health Services Union secretary, Jeff Jackson, in relation to this matter? Mr Jackson identified himself as the man who had paid back $15,000, but what was the rider that he put on it? The rider was that Mr Thomson had made a 'risky' implication in claiming that a $15,000 repayment was linked to escort service bills. So one of the defences last week from Mr Thomson has been blown out of the water by one of his former colleagues at the HSU. Mr Thomson wanted the listeners of 2UE to believe that it was not him who had paid this money but someone else, and that person was required to repay those escort agency bills. Mr Jackson, the person involved in the repayment, has made it quite clear that that was a risky implication. Well, 'risky implication' means it is not true. Mr Thomson's interview was remarkable because, as we all know, it is an interview that has now been taken up by former senator Graham Richardson, who has made it quite clear that it is an interview which will once and for all damn the member for Dobell.

I will follow on in relation to the claims about this particular gentleman, which we now know are untrue:

Smith: Did he forge your signature?

Thomson: I don't know whether he forged my signature or who forged my signature …

He was asked if he took the matter to the police, Mr Thomson said:

Our handwriting expert believes there were a number of different signatures.

What I say to the member for Dobell is: release the outcome of your handwriting expert's inquiry and put it on the table. Last week, that was the second part of Mr Thomson's new defence in relation to these matters. We have had the $15,000 mystery man. The mystery man has come out and made it quite clear that he is no mystery man and that he repaid money which most certainly was not in relation to escort services. The second part of the new defence from Mr Thomson last week was in relation to the handwriting expert. Mr Thomson should bring in the handwriting expert's report, lay it on the table of the House of Representatives and say, 'This is my ultimate defence to the charges that I was paying for and using these escort services.' This was one opportunity that the member for Dobell had, amongst many. He had another opportunity today in the other place and again he chose not to take it. He had the opportunity to put the handwriting expert on the witness stand and have them say what Mr Thomson has been saying—that they were different signatures and that his signature was forged—but he squibbed it. At the door of the court he pulled out of this much vaunted defamation action. This was the defamation action that Mr Thomson had written to his colleagues about. I have seen the letter and those opposite know that in that letter he pleaded his innocence in this matter. It was the perfect opportunity to go into court and put all of this information on the table and say, 'This is the proof of my innocence', but Mr Thomson squibbed the opportunity to do a whole lot of things and at least put on the witness stand the one person who could prove his innocence, if Mr Thomson was correct.

What does the community take out of this? What is the only realistic thing the community can take out of this? What they will take out is that the handwriting expert did not support Mr Thomson. The hand­writing expert did not say that these signatures were forged. The handwriting expert actually said that it was Mr Thomson's signature. That can be the only rational explanation for this matter not proceeding to court. This was a defamation action that Mr Thomson was speaking publicly with his colleagues about and it was going to be his day in court, but when he had the chance he pulled out.

Not only did he pull out of the pro­ceedings but also he pulled out and was required to pay either some or all of Fairfax's costs. Who paid for those costs? Did Mr Thomson pay for those costs? No, he did not. The people who paid his costs were the rank and file members of New South Wales Labor who had trusted that their funds to the Labor Party in New South Wales would be put towards the betterment of the Australian Labor Party. I disagree that it is going to make the party any better but those members were entitled to put that money there and they were entitled to know that it would be for the betterment of the Australian Labor Party. They were not putting their funds in there to protect the Craig Thomsons of this world. The people who Mr Thomson had ripped off during his time in charge of the HSU were the mums and dads who do the most menial and dirty jobs in this country, such as cleaning hospitals. He has treated them with complete and utter contempt.

There was a motion in the other place today moved by the Manager of Opposition Business which would have allowed the member for Dobell to come into the chamber and explain his actions once and for all. If everything he said was true then that would have been the end of the matter for him. He chose not to do so. In this chamber today the Minister for Sport had the opportunity to refute serious allegations of his involvement and the involvement of the Prime Minister's office in the payment of these funds towards Fairfax's legal costs. If you were Senator Arbib, who is at arm's length in this matter to the extent that he was not involved in the defrauding of union funds, and you were very publicly being dragged into this in the weekend papers, wouldn't you take that opportunity?

The first opportunity would have been to put out a press release. He did not take the first opportunity. The second opportunity would have been today when I asked him the question: were you involved and what was the involvement of the Prime Minister's office? He refused to answer. He refused to answer not on the back of the question being ruled out of order, because it was not ruled out of order. It was not on the back of that. He refused to do it for one reason and one reason only. Here today we had further proof of the absolute—