Craig Thomson finally left speechless
Date
February 22, 2014
Read later
Jacqueline Maley

You can say many varied and wonderful things about Craig Thomson. But you can't say he doesn't know how to make a speech.

"'Go cut your wrists, or better still, hang yourself,'" was the dramatic opening to Thomson's famous address to Parliament in May 2012.

Thomson was quoting from correspondence sent to him, his staff and his family had received over reports he had used his union credit card to pay for prostitutes.

"'Go out the back. Cut your throat. That's the only way. Have you slashed your wrists yet?''' Thomson continued.

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He paused, inclined his chin upwards and raised an accusatory index finger at then-opposition leader Tony Abbott.

"You have unleashed the lynch mob," he told Abbott.

Thomson swept his hand upwards to indicate the press gallery, which was full - no one was going to miss this show.

"And you have fanned it," he accused.

"And for that, you all, ultimately, are responsible."

Wowsers. Parliamentary business is about 99 per cent procedural motions, drawn-out legislative votes, Dorothy Dixers on the economy and Christopher Pyne-led points of order. This, by contrast, was electrifying, a masterclass in confected moral outrage. Thomson had the mien of an innocent man - by turns sorrowful, enraged and embittered over the injustice he suffered.

He even offered a quote from To Kill a Mockingbird, the Western canon's great classic on wrongful trial.

It was quite the oration. Finally, three years after Fairfax Media first published reports of his corruption, we were hearing from the man alleged to have misused his union credit cards in the worst possible way - on sex, pornographic movies, expensive dinners, cigarettes and bizarrely, firewood - while he was secretary of the Health Services Union.

Fairfax led its front page with the reports in 2009. Thomson denied the claims and sued. Fairfax defended its reporting on the grounds of truth. Thomson, faced with having to defend himself in the witness box, and possibly perjure himself, dropped the case days before a jury trial was scheduled to begin. He agreed to pay Fairfax's costs, which were in the order of $240,000.

This is about as complete a backdown as you get in defamation law.

Of course, Thomson didn't pay Fairfax's costs at all. The Labor Party did, as well as another $100,000-odd for the legal expenses Thomson had clocked up himself during his delusional attempt to right the terrible wrong he claimed had been dealt him.

Labor paid his legal costs because by the time the defamation action was dropped - mid-2011 - it led a minority government. If Thomson had gone bankrupt he would have been banned from Parliament, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard needed Thomson on the floor of the House to maintain power.

Of course, it is worth remembering that the opposition's outrage was slow to arrive. It never raised the claims at the time Fairfax reported them. No questions were asked in Parliament until much later. Thomson only became a target after the hung parliament made him one.

"I didn't realise that this was going to go four years," Thomson told the stone-silent Parliament during his address.

No one did, but Thomson had himself to blame for that. If he hadn't started defamation proceedings, and then lied to colleagues and to a Fair Work Australia investigation about the reasons the case was dropped, the whole thing might have washed dirtily away.

Labor had literally years to deal with the problem. Allegations had been swirling for a long time even before Fairfax's reporting. Fair Work Australia started its own investigation in 2010.

Any party official who had done due diligence would have detected the stench that surrounded Thomson, and yet he was preselected twice - once in 2007 and again in 2010.

The only conclusion voters, and Labor Party members (who ultimately ended up paying for Thomson's expensive legal frolic) can reach is that Labor knew, but it didn't care.

But back to Thomson's speech. They cared now all right, as the party's MPs sat uncomfortable on their benches, listening to Thomson shift blame, accuse others and play, with great passion, the part of the wrongly accused man. His audacity was awe-inspiring.

"In the eyes of many of the public I have already been charged, convicted and sentenced," he said.

"The public will hold these views because of the quite extraordinary media coverage that has taken place."

He had some advice for us journos. "There is a great responsibility in reporting. You need to take that seriously."

He accused his former HSU colleague Marco Belano of setting him up, itself a gross defamation against which Belano was defenceless, because Thomson was able to hide behind parliamentary privilege.

But he saved his best for Abbott, who he said had "trashe

As someone who defended Thomsons right to a fair trial, I have to say that he has finally seemed to have had it, and all the crimes he is now convicted of  reflect badly upon himself, but more importantly, and pertinently, very badly upon the Labor Party.

People can dupe you, and innocent people can be convicted, and guilty ones set free, but they are the exceptions, not the rule, and Labor now have another scandal to hang around their necks, that they should have dealt with far more properly than it seems they did, and far sooner.

Whilst all the prejudging from the Lib cheersquad was unseemly, the defending of him by those close enough to him that they should have been able to make a better judgment call, we can now think may have been worse.

Shame Labor Shame.

cods wrote on Feb 24^th, 2014 at 8:19am:


We should anticipate/ensure that Politicians, like everyone else, are dealt with properly, fairly & when the full & due process of the law is afforded, if they are found guilty, then they are dealt with appropriately!

cods wrote on Feb 24^th, 2014 at 8:19am:

SHAME LABOR SHAME.

viewpoint wrote on Feb 24^th, 2014 at 11:07am:


Maybe.  Its been known that business deals etc have been signed sealed and delievered after a night with strippers/hookers.  Not something I have been a part of or condone, but it has been known to happen.

Thommo is covering for someone because at no stage has he been accused of buying hookers for himself, rather just buying hookers.  Did those people he bought them for then do business that was beneficial for those union members?