This could be the fall we have all be hoping for! DPP urged to act against Thomson

DPP urged to act against Thomson

04 Aug, 2011 12:08 AM

THE federal opposition has called on the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions to launch criminal proceedings against the Labor MP Craig Thomson, an act that would have the potential to force a byelection and bring down the Gillard government.

The shadow attorney-general, George Brandis, seized on an admission by Mr Thomson on the radio station 2UE on Monday that he approved a Health Services Union credit card payment to a Sydney escort agency.

Mr Thomson, who was the head of the union before entering Parliament in 2007, said: ''I authorised all credit card bills'', when asked about a payment of $2475 to a brothel in April 2005. The bill had appeared on his union-supplied credit card.

''I didn't know it was an escort agency,'' he said. ''The union reached a settlement with another gentleman who paid back $15,000 in relation to use of credit cards at an escort agency.''

Mr Thomson did not name the man. Nor did he explain why mobile phone records suggest he made calls to two numbers matching Sydney escort operations.

Senator Brandis said Mr Thomson was being evasive and inconsistent. ''His implausible suggestion … that the brothel services were in fact provided to an unnamed third person, his admission that he 'authorised all the credit card bills' and that there has been a person who has paid back some money, and his inexplicable failure to report the matter to the police, taken together raise serious grounds to conclude that either Thomson committed criminal fraud by using HSU funds for brothel services, or that he was a party to covering up the criminal fraud of another person,'' Senator Brandis said.

''While respecting the independence of the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, it does seem that there is now sufficient ground for him to commence criminal proceedings against Thomson.''

Mr Thomson holds the marginal central coast seat of Dobell. If criminal proceedings were instituted, and he were convicted, he would have to leave Parliament. The constitution stipulates that an MP cannot serve if convicted of a charge that carries a sentence of a year or more.

Mr Thomson could not be contacted yesterday.