Craig Thomson Is a Crook

The allegedly independent member for Dobell, Craig Thomson, has asserted that he will “sue anyone who claims that he’s had sex with prostitutes”.  The discovery process of any suit should be interesting; I, for one, should like to know what other explanation Mr. Thomson might offer for his providing funds misappropriated from union members to prostitutes.

Anyway, I, Informal (of The Waterfront, Hampden Road, Battery Point, in Tasmania), hereby assert that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, based on available evidence and reasonable conclusions drawn therefrom, Craig Robert Thomson, the member of the House of Representatives for the Division of Dobell, New South Wales, did, on many occasions, when he was National Secretary of the Health Services Union, have sexual congress (or some other form of sexual relations) with prostitutes; I also assert that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, Craig Robert Thomson improperly paid for the aforesaid sexual services either by way of credit cards issued by the Health Services Union without proper authorisation to obtain such services thereby or by cash wrongfully appropriated from Health Services Union accounts; furthermore, I assert that Craig Robert Thomson subsequently attempted to conceal the evidence of his sexual activities with prostitutes, and the improper payments therefor, by way of further wrongful payments or bribery and other malfeasance, and that he knowingly and deliberately misrepresented his activities in his duplicitous apologia to the House of Representatives.  Accordingly, I assert that Craig Robert Thomson is a corrupt liar and a pornerastic cheat.

UPDATE I:  see “So Sue, Craig Sue”, by Prof. Bunyip; as well as “Craig Thomson’s Statement to the House of Representatives”.

UPDATE II (24 October):  see “Fraud squad raids Craig Thomson’s house”, by Malcom Farr, wherein the devious Thomson lies, yet again, by claiming that he has “done nothing wrong.”

UPDATE III (25 October):  see “Police closing on criminal charges against Craig Thomson”, by Steve Lewis and Andrew Clennell:

Victorian police are considering multiple criminal charges against […] Thomson, including in relation to allegations he received secret commissions while he was a union boss.

The NSW and Victorian police have been closely co-operating on some aspects of the investigation into claims the embattled MP illegally spent tens of thousands of dollars in Health Services Union funds.

UPDATE IV (25 October):  see “If Craig’s relying on handwriting, he might be pushing it uphill” by Michael Smith. 

UPDATE V (31 October):  see “Thomson defamed, says solicitor”, by Kate McClymont, in The Sydney Morning Herald: 

Craig Thomson’s new solicitor, Chris McArdle, has issued his first defamation threat over the suggestion that his embattled client used union funds to pay for prostitutes.
“Our client has never used other people’s money or his own money to pay people for sex with him.  Anyone who says the opposite will be sued,” Mr McArdle said.
Last week Katrina Hart, a branch president of the Health Services Union, took up the challenge.
“Craig Thomson, you are a liar, you paid for prostitutes with my money and the money of every other HSU member.  You [took] $100,000 from us.  I dare you to sue me,” said Ms Hart, in The Daily Telegraph last week.
Ms Hart received a threatening letter from Mr McArdle claiming her comments were defamatory.  “We will commence proceedings … most likely after we have achieved dismissal of the defective and wrongly based litigation that has been commenced against him.”

After they have achieved dismissal of litigation against Thomson?  Nothing will happen very soon, then.
See also “Craig Thomson Never Slept with Prostitutes”. 

UPDATE VI (31 January, 2013):  listen to Ben Fordham and Michael Smith discuss the arrest of Craig Thomson and related matters.

UPDATE VII (22 April):  see “Thomson has $60 in bank, court told”, by Kate McClymont:

Embattled federal MP Craig Thomson has only $60 in the bank and owes $23,000 on credit cards, documents filed in the Federal Court reveal.
Mr Thomson is facing criminal and civil proceedings relating to allegations of wrongdoing while he was a Health Services Union official, before he entered Parliament in 2007.
His legal team has asked the Federal Court to postpone the civil action being taken against him by the Fair Work Commission until after the criminal proceedings were dealt with.
Mr Thomson is facing 154 criminal charges including using his union credit card to pay for prostitutes and fine dining.
Running the cases simultaneously would be an enormous financial burden, the Federal Court heard this week.  Solicitor Chris McArdle filed an affidavit stating Mr Thomson had $60 in the bank and no other source of income except for his parliamentary salary of $190,550, plus travel allowance of $260 a day when Parliament was sitting.

Poor lamb!  With a salary of only four times that of the average member of the union he defrauded, it’s a wonder he has the strength to visit prostitutes or to watch pornographic movies!

He owed $23,000 on credit cards.  His monthly mortgage repayment was $3,400 and living expenses per month exceeded $5000.  Mr Thomson's wife earned less than $15,000 per year.
The affidavit indicates Mr Thomson may well re-contest his Central Coast seat of Dobell, because he would receive no payment when he left Parliament, but expected to receive $95,275 before tax if he contested the seat.  The affadavit did not explain how this figure was calculated.

Shane Dowling, at Kangaroo Court of Australia, asks reasonable questions, “Craig Thomson MP – Who’s Paying His Legal Bills? Which Union Is It?”:

Federal MP Craig Thomson has an estimated legal bill of $300,000 for his current criminal and civil proceedings which he is defending.  So who is paying the bill?  It is only a couple of years ago that the NSW Labor party had to pay $350,000 in legal bills for Mr Thomson so he did not go bankrupt and get kicked out of parliament.
The mail is it that the Transport Workers Union (TWU) have stepped in with a slush fund to help with the reddies needed to pay his legal expenses.  The TWU is run by the well-known slush fund operator, fraudster, thief, money launderer and National Vice President of the Labor Party, Tony Sheldon.  There is also mail that the AWU might have also set up a slush fund on the side to help Craig Thomson.  As we all know the AWU is well versed in running slush funds, just ask the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
The biggest question in my mind though is, has Justice Christopher Jessup of the Federal Court of Australia been deliberately misled by Craig Thomson and/or his lawyer Christopher McArdle in matter VID798/2012 – General Manager of Fair Work Australia v Craig Thomson?

UPDATE VIII (30 April):  Craig Thomson is appealing for donations, according to this site:

Ever a man of the people, the demotic but pornerastic MP commendably eschews fancy grammar and a superfluity of commas, you might notice.  Why people might abuse “common law principals”, I cannot tell.

UPDATE IX (1 May):  Mark Worthington, one of the fund-raisers for Mr. Thomson, is a retired solicitor and former Labor candidate.  Heath Aston, in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald—which, one might think, ought to have access to accurate electoral records—, claimed, wrongly, that Mr. Worthington “was a former Labor candidate for the federal seat of Calare”; however, he was an unsuccessful candidate, twice, for the State seat of Bathurst.

UPDATE X (1 May):  we may listen to Mark Worthington talk with Ben Fordham.  Mr Worthington reckons that Craig Thomson’s parents “have been to hell and back”.  He asserts that he is supporting Mr. Thomson from “an acute sense of injustice” because the pillars of British justice, the “right to silence and presumption to innocence” are being threatened or ignored or demeaned or destroyed or something; he complains that Mr. Thomson has been treated “like a pariah”, though he’s innocent, and insists that it’s outrageous for people to believe that Thomson is guilty.  We must believe that Craig Thomson is innocent because Craig Thomson says he is.  Uh huh.
For a man who claims legal expertise, Mr. Worthington hasn’t quite worked out that the presumption of innocence is a legal rule concerning the burden of proof in criminal trials.  It exists only within the context of a criminal trial, and need stop none of us (except for the constraints of defamation laws and the like) from calling proven crooks and liars crooks and liars.  Craig Thomson is a crook who lied, and continues to lie, and misled Parliament.

UPDATE XI (1 May):  see also “Craig Thomson Sets Up a Slush Fund but Calls It a Trust Fund to Pay His Legal Bills” at Kangaroo Court of Australia.

UPDATE XII (2 May):  see “Thomson pressured over fighting fund”, by Steve Lewis and Lanai Scarr: 

It has emerged that Mr Thomson’s ailing father, Jack, was behind the fund, a website declaring it “accepts donations for [Thomson’s] legal defence”.  […] 
Under pressure to disclose further details of the fund, Mr Thomson denied making any misleading statements as he launched his public appeal.
"I did not mislead anyone over the setting up of the web page. But I do note there was some inaccurate reporting," he told News Limited.
He also denied that any taxpayer-funded resources—or staff members—were used to promote the fund.  […]
Mr Thomson also defended taking his wife, Zoe, and two young children on a fortnight's holiday to Bali. 
“Anyone who has faced the type of pressure and continued scrutiny that my family has endured should be able to take a private two-week break,” he said. 
“Unfortunately, due to the continued harassment by media, my family has not been able to get that break in Australia.  The cost of our holiday is cheaper than most similar holidays in Australia.”

Thomson denied that staff members were used to promote his fund-raising?  Well, we know the worth of any denial from Craig Thomson.

David Gardiner is one of Mr. Thomson’s staff, paid by the taxpayer.

UPDATE XIII (4 May):  listen to Michael Smith and Sen. George Brandis discuss the Craig Thomson Legal Defence Fund:   it could be a ploy by Mr. Thomson to avoid listing gifts on the Register of Members’ Interest, and his insistence that he did no wrong is contradicted by the FWA investigation, Sen. Brandis argues, wherefore his appeal for donations might constitute obtaining money by deception.

UPDATE XIV (19 July):  so much for the claim that he knew nothing about the use of his credit card used for porn, hookers and slap-ups; see “Thomson may not dispute credit card use”, by Pia Akerman:

Former Labor MP Craig Thomson appears to have abandoned his claim that he did not use union credit cards to pay for escorts, with his lawyer today telling a court it was “very likely” there would be no dispute about who used the cards.
Mr Thomson, who is running for reelection in his seat of Dobell as an independent, has applied for the 173 charges relating to his alleged misuse of union funds to be decided by a magistrate instead of proceeding to a judge and jury.
Making the application today, Mr Thomson's barrister Greg James QC said it was likely there would be no issues about the facts of the case, and the matter instead related to whether Mr Thomson had authority for the spending as national secretary.

UPDATE XV (19 July):  the member for Dobell will argue, it seems, that it the burden of proof rests on the prosecution to establish beyond doubt that it wasn’t against the rules to pay for hookers, porn and slap-ups on his union’s cards:

The fraud case against embattled MP Craig Thomson will not go before a judge and jury.
Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg today ruled it was appropriate for the case to be heard in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.
He said the case, while potentially lengthy, was not complex and did not come close to exceeding the court’s jurisdiction.
Mr Thomson will be unlikely to dispute the fact his used union credit cards were used to pay for porn and prostitutes, the court heard.
The former Labor MP has previously vigorously denied more than 170 charges brought against him over claims he misused a union credit card for personal use including to pay for escorts.
But his lawyer today told the court there was likely “to be little debate” about the facts of the case and “little dispute” over the charges.
But he said there would be questions raised over the authority Mr Thomson did or didn’t have to use the cards.  […]
“Despite some media reports, I am not making any admissions.  But there is a threshold issue of who had authority to use the credit card, which must be heard first [Thomson said].

UPDATE XVI (18 February, 2014):  Mr Thomson has been found guilty “of six charges of using HSU credit cards to pay for sex, as well as other charges including theft”; the magistrate found Thomson must have known he had no authority to use his union’s credit card to pay harlots’ fees.  See also “Thomson found guilty of fraud, theft charges”, by Adam Cooper:

Thomson was found guilty of most of the allegations against him—that he paid for sex, withdrew cash from ATMs and bought cigarettes for his then wife with credit cards issued to him by the Health Services Union while he was the union’s national secretary between 2002 and 2007.  […]
Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg also found Thomson guilty of using union funds for his personal use after he had left the HSU and taken up his role as the Labor member for the NSW seat of Dobell.
But Mr Rozencwajg found Thomson not guilty of charges related to the purchase of in-house movies in hotel rooms while on HSU work trips, and delivered a mixed verdict related to allegations he illegally used union funds on travel expenses for his then wife, Christa.
The magistrate found some of the allegations related to spousal travel proven, but dismissed others.
In total Thomson was charged with more than 140 offences, including theft, obtaining property by deception and obtaining financial advantage by deception.  […]
Mr Rozencwajg said it was ‘‘an affront to common sense’’ that Thomson could think he could use a union-issued credit card to pay escort workers, when he, as the head of the union, had previously redrafted the code on the use of HSU cards.

UPDATE XVII (19 February, 2014):  in various fora critics of Mr Thomson are insisting that he should face the wrath of Parliament for misleading it.  Many people have even suggested that the former member could be imprisoned for six months.  At Catallaxy Files I replied to another commenter who claimed that Thomson “stood up in the parliament under privilege and deliberately lied”:

Unfortunately, that’s not true.  I maintain that he wilfully attempted to mislead Parliament in his dissembling, deliberately deceptive discourse, and should be tried [by Parliament] therefor, but he was careful not to utter a specific lie.  For example, though he pontificated on the presumption of innocence, he never said in his lengthy, lachrymose speech “I am innocent”; instead, he warily said, “I have consistently from day one denied any wrongdoing in relation to these issues”.  That was a true statement: he had always denied any wrongdoing.

As I said when Craig Thomson made his duplicitous apologia in the House of Representatives, a forthright, honest and innocent man says, “I’m innocent”; only a man with something to hide sneakily utters such equivocations as “I have consistently from day one denied any wrongdoing in relation to these issues” without ever actually saying “I’m innocent”.

Another Story You May Not Read

Here is what may or may not be an article by Glenn Milne which is—officially, at least—no longer available on-line, with some names changed to protect the possibly guilty:

The real import of the alleged brothel-creeping scandal surrounding Craig Tomcat has been missed, and it is this:  key factions and unions within the Labor movement are now openly indifferent to the fate of either Julia Lameduck or the federal government.  They simply don’t care any more.  Lameduck has now lost all authority within the broader Labor movement.  By their actions in the Tomcat saga they have signalled a judgment that she cannot win the next election.  Settling internal scores and power struggles is therefore now more important than whatever happens to a lame-duck Prime Nanny who can’t haul her primary voting numbers out of the pathetically fatal mid 20s.
The Mafia-style dirt-covered shovel—code for digging your own grave—dumped on Friday at 3.30am on the doorstop of Kathy Jocksan, the union official who had the courage to refer Tomcat’s activities to the police, may as well have been delivered to the Lodge.  For Lameduck it is now that bad.  She is simply regarded as collateral damage and large sections in the Labor movement are uninterested about whether she be terminally wounded or not as they go about their internal bloodletting.  It is about to get worse as elements of the Australian Workers’ Union seek to settle up with Tomcat’s accusers by demonstrating that Lameduck herself was implicated, albeit unknowingly, in a major union fraud of her own before she entered parliament.
On Friday, Michael Smith of 2UE contacted me to check the veracity of material in a statutory declaration drawn up by Bob Kernehen, the former president of the AWU, and dealing with the relationship between Lameduck and Bruce Wolsin, which I outline below.
On Saturday, Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph columnist Andrew Bolt wrote on his blog:  “On Monday, I’m tipping, a witness with a statutory declaration will come forward and implicate Julia Lameduck directly in another scandal involving the misuse of union funds.  Lameduck herself is not accused of any misbehaviour at all.  I do not make that claim, and do not hold that belief, but her judgment—and that of at least one of her ministers—will come under severe question.  She will seem compromised.  It could be the last straw for Lameduck’s leadership.”
Big call.  I do, however, have a good deal of knowledge regarding Bolt’s claims.  On Sunday November 11, 2007, just days before the November 24 election, I interviewed Lameduck, then deputy leader of the opposition, in my capacity as political editor for News Limited’s Sunday newspapers.  The interview concerned the embezzlement of union funds—not disputed—and later the subject of a court conviction by a former boyfriend of Lameduck, Bruce Wolsin.  I had researched the piece for months.  It was the most heavily lawyered article I have ever been involved in writing.  The story said that as a solicitor acting on instructions, she set up an association later used by her lover to defraud the AWU; but she has strenuously denied ever knowing wherefor the association’s bank accounts were used.  Lameduck, then in her early 30s, was a lawyer with Melbourne-based Labor firm Slutter & Goldon.  At the time of the fraud she acted for the AWU.  She met Wolsin, then the West Australian AWU secretary, while representing the union in the Industrial Relations Commission.  Wolsin later moved to Melbourne to become Victorian secretary of the union.
“These matters happened between 12 and 15 years ago,” Lameduck told me. “I was young and naïve.  I was in a relationship, which I ended—I did, I tell you, I dumped him, he did not dump me, I dumped him, I really did, and if he told you he dumped me then he lied because I dumped him, honest—, and obviously it was all very distressing.  I am by no means the first person to find out that someone close turns out to be different to what you had believed them to be. It’s an ordinary human error.  I am, after all, human.  See, there’s a tear in my eye.  See?  Well, you might not be able to spot it, but there’s a tear in my eye and a catch in my throat.  Okay?
“Anyway, I was obviously hurt, when I was later falsely accused publicly of wrongdoing.  I didn’t do anything wrong and to have false allegations in the media was distressing.”
She added, wistfully, “I was but a wee, slim lass at the time—this was before my behind ballooned out like a dead beluga’s bloated bladder, obviously—, and I can’t be held accountable for the slight mistakes of my youth.”
What the lawyers would not allow to be reported was the fact that Lameduck shared a home in Fitzroy bought by Wolsin using the embezzled funds.  (By “shared a home”, of course, we mean that, though they dwelt in separate houses, officially, they were really cohabiting.  Come on, we all know heaps of people who claim to reside at different addresses, in order to claim benefits, but who are really living together.)  There is or was no suggestion Lameduck knew about the origin of the money.  We now await the issue whereto Bolt refers.
If it come, and if it be as powerful as Bolt suggests, it will be further evidence that the Victorian right represented by the AWU is involved in a life and death struggle with the right as represented by the Health Services Union.  Tomcat was a senior official of the HSU for 20 years before entering parliament via the seat of Dumbell.
The HSU split several years ago into two factions.  Tomcat was supported by Jeff Jocksan, Kathy Jocksan’s former husband.  This so-called old guard was the support base for Victorian right-wing power boss, David Weeney.  Weeney is now looking for a parliamentary seat because Lameduck’s abysmal numbers have made his third Senate spot vulnerable.
A defeat for the old guard by way of a successful prosecution of Tomcat by police, would leave Weeney powerless and without a base or a seat.
Jocksan himself has been accused of using union money on escorts with enemies of the Victorian HSU boss releasing bank statements showing payments to the same Sydney brothel where federal MP Tomcat’s credit card was allegedly used.  Jocksan has denied the claims. Ultimately at issue here could be the succession to Lameduck, and I’ll explain why.
When Kathy Jocksan called in the wallopers, the stakes were high.  Because a federal defeat for Tomcat and his allies would enhance the power base of Victoria’s two other factional king makers, Bill Sherton and Stephen Cuntroy who are both aligned with the new guard in the HSU—and we all know what Sherton’s ultimate ambition is.
What a tangled web will liars weave especially when you consider Tomcat is married to Zoe Ornald, a former Transport Workers Union official and adviser to former NSW Health Minister Reba Maeghar.  Alex Williomsan, daughter of HSU national president Mike Williomsan, is an adviser to Lameduck; and, of course, as mentioned, Kathy Jocksan, who blew the whistle on Tomcat, was married to former Victorian state HSU secretary Jeff Jocksan.
Truly, the NSW Disease has arrived in Canberra.
Meanwhile, amid all this incestuous manoeuvring, Lameduck attempts to adopt the high ground, attacking shadow attorney-general George Brandis for intervening in the course of justice.  On Thursday morning Lameduck attacked Brandis for speaking to NSW Police Minister Michael Gallacher at a time when the allegations against Lameduck were being assessed by NSW Police.  Unfortunately, she got her facts wrong because the NSW police only announced they were conducting an assessment four days after Brandis spoke to Gallacher and in fact only got Brandis’s dossier three days after he spoke to Gallacher.
A small point, but one that indicates the pressure is beginning to show on Lameduck as she desperately searches for points of deflection.  During the same press conference she also vainly tried to defend Tomcat’s decision not to make a statement to the parliament on the facts.  We all know why; if he lie he’s finished as an MP and Lameduck is washed up as Prime Nanny.  Lameduck and Tomcat are shackled together just as surely as two First Fleet convicts.
Oh, and here’s a small postscript whereon to end.  On September 7 at the Wyong Christian School at 2pm there will be the opening of a new hall built with funds from Lameduck’s time overseeing the Building the Education Revolution.  Tomcat is scheduled to attend as the local member.  My gut instinct is that both he and the Prime Nanny will be otherwise engaged.

UPDATE I (30 August):  for a story you may read, see “Donations, deals and declarations:  how the HSU’s money flowed to Labor”, by Imre Salusinszky, of The Australian.  See also Nikki Savva’s “Whatever the problem, blame Abbott ”.  Tony Wright of The Age, in “Gillard calls; Murdoch paper sorry”, suggests that the PM—who is seldom troubled by the deceits, evasions, untruths, fibs, fabrications, deceptions, fictions, falsifications, dissemblings, prevarications, perjuries, falsehoods and lies either from her own lips or from those of her colleagues—was peeved by Milne’s article:

The Age understands Ms Gillard was furious not only because the column included a false claim, but because she had been led to believe by Mr Hartigan that News Ltd newspapers were not intending to pursue the decades-old story of her former conman lover.

UPDATE II (30 August):  see Prof. Bunyip’s “From Retreat to Rout”.

UPDATE III (30 August):  see scanned pages of a Statutory Declaration by Robert Kernohan:

 

 

 

UPDATE IV (31 August):  Potemkin’s Village continues to be well worth visiting.

UPDATE V (31 August):  for those who insist on reading Milne’s original, poorly written article—which, we stress, is a badly punctuated work of fiction wherein any claim of wrongdoing is untrue in all respects—, you may read it here.  Milne’s earlier article from 2007, “Gillard’s Stunning Confession”, is here.

UPDATE VI (3 September):  see Andrew Bolt’s “Protecting Gillard: ABC sacks Milne”.

UPDATE VII (4 September):  see Michael Bachelard’s “Union boss in Thomson probe has breakdown”, in The Age; and see Andrew Bolt here and here too. 

UPDATE VIII (4 September):  the ABC still insists that Milne’s article was “false”—on the evidence, it seems, of the PM:

UPDATE IX (5 September): at Kangaroo Court of Australia, see Shane Dowling’s “Has Julia Gillard blackmailed the Media to cover up her corrupt past? the Fairfax Media and News Corp scandal”.

UPDATE X (5 September):  Paul Sheehan, of the Sydney Morning Herald, writes:

On [the issue of the Government’s incompetent policy and conduct on the “asylum seekers” (i.e., unlawful non-citizens seeking illegal entry)] alone, the Government would fall were an election held soon.
But it will cling on, indefinitely, thanks to Tony Windsor, Robert Oakeshott and Craig Thomson, of whom the Prime Minister said recently:  “I have complete confidence in the member for Dobell [and] look forward to him continuing to do that job for a very long, long, long time to come.”
On this moral foundation stands the Gillard government.

UPDATE XI (5 September):  Glenn Milne, from November, 2007, on “How [the] scam worked.”  (With thanks to spot_the_dog.)

UPDATE XII (6 September):  If the PM had ever done anything wrong, she’d say so, wouldn’t she?  Jonathan Holmes, on “Media Watch”, apparently accepts all the pusillanimous Prime Minister’s feeble protestations of innocence:

Gillard has already explained herself in Glenn Milne’s 2007 article.  She’s denied any wrongdoing many times, going back to when the allegations were first raised in the Victorian Parliament in 1995 ...

She denied wrongdoing again in 2001, and in an interview for the ABC’s Australian Story in 2006 ... 

She must, therefore, be squeaky clean; and there’ll be no carbon dioxide tax under any government she leads.  Criminals might care to try that “persistently deny wrongdoing” defence next time they’re in court:

Court Officer:  How do you plead?

Defendant:  Not guilty!

Judge:  Really?  On all charges?

Defendant:  Yes, your honour, I am not guilty!

Judge:  Are you absolutely sure?  These charges seem to be pretty serious; and I note that there is quite a pile of evidence against you, with a long list of witnesses for the prosecution.

Defendant: I aint never done nothing.  I am, as I’ve said all along, absolutely innocent of all charges.  Not guilty!  Not guilty!  Not guilty!

Judge: Well, then, with such persistent denial of wrongdoing, I must—and I shall—dismiss all charges, wherefore you are free to go.  I shall, however, have some stern words to say to the prosecutor…

UPDATE XIII (6 September):  see Andrew Bolt’s “If this is old news, why have two journalists been silenced?”

UPDATE XIV (11 September):  quite rightly, the persistent Shane Dowling, at Kangaroo Court of Australia, continues to demand a response from our strangely censorious, seemingly corrupt, and manifestly incompetent, lying leader. 

UPDATE XV (17 September):  see “Knives out as Health Services Union breaks from Labor”, by Ean Higgins and Milanda Rout, in The Australian.

UPDATE  XVI (18 September):  see Prof. Bunyip’s “The Hospice Vigil”.

UPDATE  XVII (19 September):  at Kangaroo Court of Australia, see “The lies and deception of Media Watch and host Jonathan Holmes in defence of Julia Gillard” by Shane Dowling.

UPDATE  XVIII (19 September):  at Catallaxy Files, Judith Sloan asks “Is the HSU the tip of the iceberg?” 

UPDATE  XIX (26 September):  see “Union boss Kathy Jackson steps up pursuit of Craig Thomson”, by Ean Higgin, in The Australian. 

UPDATE  XX (17 October):  it never ends; see “Julia Gillard appoints Bernard Murphy, her partner in crime from Slater and Gordon lawyers, as a Federal Court of Australia judge”, at Kangaroo Court of Australia.

UPDATE  XXI (17 December):  see Tim Blair’s “Maybe Someone Else Did It”, wherein he suggests that Craig Thomson’s parliamentary reports contained plagiarised material.  Finally, it is evident, we can put an end to the silly, defamatory claims that the honourable member (or someone with the same name) ever went to brothels soliciting sexual favours.  Clearly, Thomson (or someone of the same name)—aware that many brothels, sadly, tend to employ young lasses who are working their way through their tertiary studies—was merely seeking arts students to help him write his reports in a pious effort to provide them suitably meritorious, literary assignments rather than meretricious, venereal work.  That many arts students these days can’t compile a decent report without plagiarising from Wikipedia and the like is hardly his (or his namesake’s) fault. 

UPDATE  XXII (11 January, 2012):  Thomson still sticks around, like a particularly noisome stink; see “Craig Thomson Scandal Snub”, by Steve Lewis and Andrew Clennell.

UPDATE  XXIII (24 May):  see “Keep It Simple, Thomson”. 

UPDATE  XXIV (22 June):  finally, these matters are being raised in Parliament—see Andrew Bolt’s “Gillard Confronted with the Scandal She Almost Buried”.

UPDATE  XXV (23 June):  Larry Pickering comments here and here. 

UPDATE  XXVI (23 June):  see “Julia Gillard’s corrupt past raised in parliament by ALP member Robert McClelland” at Kangaroo Court of Australia.