Craig Thomson has made a brief statement to journalists in Canberra today, attacking media coverage of allegations against him
“Enough is enough,” Thomson said. At one point he asked: “Is this about trying to push someone to the brink?”
- Listen to Thomson’s statement:
Transcript of statement by Craig Thomson.
I’m just going to make a very short statement, any other questions that you have I refer you back to my statement that I made in parliament the other day.
It was almost Fidel-like I think in length, so there is plenty of footage there for you with that.
Can I say at the moment I am subject to, we’ve had Fair Trading in NSW look at the issues of the HSU, we’ve had the NSW police on two occasions, we’ve had the AEC on two occasions, now they’ve all finished their investigations.
There is an ongoing investigation by the Victorian police, we’ve also had it now being referred to privileges, and a couple of other committees.
What I’m here to say is guys, enough is enough really. How many inquiries do we actually need to be looking at this?
What would be really good is for the opposition to get on and do the sort of work that they need to be doing in terms of policy issues and let this circus kind of roll on.
I’m not sure how much people expect is needed of these issues but I think that nine investigations probably does it.
We also have of course pending court action in relation to civil charges that the general manager of Fair Work has outlined.
These are the appropriate places for these matters to be dealt with.
We now have the completely ridiculous situation that you guys are all collectively responsible for, because it was always going to happen, that we have someone now being paid ten times as much money as is alleged to have been used by the HSU credit card, in terms of prostitutes, to give a story.
This defies credibility, that you are going to spend $60,000 to buy an interview from a prostitute about a story.
Quite frankly this is journalism at its worst.
I know that we have a very responsible press gallery and this is coming from outside of that, but let’s be real about this.
I have consistently said from the start I’ve done no wrong doing, I continue to say that, we are going through these investigative processes, let’s not descend any further into the gutter.
What do people actually want, are they looking to try to continue to incite the sort of hate mail that we are getting, that I’m getting, that my staff are getting.
Is this about trying to push someone to the brink? I mean really there are enough investigative processes that are there that if people have things they want to say, go through those proper processes.
