Confidential settlement ... Labor MP Craig Thomson claimed he was owed several years of annual leave by the Health Services Union.Confidential settlement ... Labor MP Craig Thomson claimed he was owed several years of annual leave by the Health Services Union. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
LABOR MP Craig Thomson received a secret payout of almost $160,000 from the Health Services Union three years after he left the union and had been elected to Federal Parliament.
The confidential settlement, obtained by the Herald, shows that in September 2010 the union agreed to pay $129,555 in entitlements plus $30,000 to settle a defamation claim Mr Thomson had brought against the union and its national secretary, Kathy Jackson.
The suit against the union was over allegations that he had used his union credit card for a session at a brothel, the use of escort services and for $100,000 in cash advances over five years when he was the national secretary.
Mr Thomson claimed he was owed several years of annual leave and other entitlements but the union had withheld payment while it investigated claims he had misused union funds.
At the time he received the payout, Mr Thomson was suing Fairfax Media, the publisher of the Herald, over the allegations of misuse of his credit card which had been uncovered during an internal audit conducted for the union after his departure.
Mr Thomson said someone else had used his credit card. But records obtained under subpoena by Fairfax revealed the credit card vouchers for the brothel and escort agency transactions were not only issued in Mr Thomson's name and signed by him, but the driver's licence details on the back of the vouchers belonged to a Craig Robert Thomson of Bateau Bay.
The NSW Supreme Court heard that Mr Thomson's mobile was used to call ''Sydney Escorts - Room Service'' twice and to phone union and Labor officials before and after the calls to the escorts. He later dropped the case.
It has since been reported that the ALP's NSW head office paid $150,000 of Mr Thomson's legal bills to stop him being bankrupted, which would have automatically excluded him from political office, leading to the likely collapse of the government. The former senator Mark Arbib was questioned about his alleged involvement in organising the payments of Mr Thomson's legal bills. Mr Arbib told the Senate the matter was unrelated to his portfolio and should be addressed to Mr Thomson and the Labor Party.
Until Mr Thomson dropped his case against Fairfax, last June, he was telling people that not only was he innocent but he had won the case against Fairfax.
''He looked me in the eye and told me he won,'' a minister has previously told the Herald.
The one-time Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson has also been reported telling people that very early on, after making his own inquiries, he had advised Mr Thomson to drop the suit against Fairfax.
It appears no one gave the union the same advice. In July 2010, Mr Thomson's lawyer sent it a demand for $200,000. ''Our client maintains that he has high prospects of success in his proceedings against the Fairfax companies and … in obtaining a favourable verdict and damages in his proceedings against the union or Ms Jackson.''
Mr Thomson did not get the $200,000 but while the union's whistleblower Ms Jackson was overseas the union secretly paid him $160,000. (20/4/2012 Sydney Morning Herald)


政治交易醜惡之處，在Thomson事件表露無遺。我以前寫過這議員用公款召妓(見再談議員召妓)，留下數碼足印(digital trail)，竟可以厚顏抵賴，反控索償，對簿公堂，得到工會和解賠償。澳洲工黨弱勢政府，如果不保住Thomson，恐怕立即跨台，所以工會跟他和解，Fair Trading Commission拖拖拉拉的調查了3年，發表了過千頁錯漏百出的報告，有心辦壞事，放生Thomson，讓這民望極低的政府得以苟延殘喘挨下去。如果這種事情發生在香港，警察和ICAC一早都出動了，怎會這樣胡裡胡塗讓他蒙混過關。澳洲人大都豁達大度，容忍力高，甚麼也不著緊。反對黨也不窮追猛打，以防日後輪到自己給人拿到把柄，沒廻轉餘地。兩黨同心，其利斷金，魚肉百姓，使人噁心。下次大選，我又投白票了，本來兩害取其輕，當兩害難分軒輊，教我如何去選它？