Craig Thomson resigns-Only to be become an Independant?

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Robbo

Update-This poor excuse of a public official has spend more than an hour under parliamentary privilege, blaming everyone else, pointing fingers, justifying the unjustifiable, declaring that all sorts of frauds are possible.BUT non include anything he has ever done. He is a saint according to him…He has not ADDRESSED one accusation and try to justify it…

This joke will go down in history as the most embarrassing speech ever…Think Pauline Hansen and Migrants…this tops everything…

Well you thieving little moron. I have scanned documents, sent to me by many sources, (some from your so called allies) and I think I will release them one a day at a time, to ridicule your pathetic attempts to defect your illegal, behaviours…

Let us disregard your moral misdemeanours… Here is this disgusting PM’s email he sent to his colleagues bragging about Fairfax last year……

Craig Thomson Email he spoke about today…I have 30 more you loser….

Thomson resigns from ALP as PM seeks to distance govt from scandals

Craig Thomson is expected to still vote with the Labor government from the crossbenches.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has sought to salvage her government by distancing it from embattled MPs Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson, who has quit the Labor Party at her request.

Mr Thomson, who has been battling allegations for several years that he misused his credit card as a union official before entering parliament, will join the cross-benches as an independent.

Ms Gillard spoke to Mr Thomson on Saturday night and told him it was no longer in the interests of the government for him to remain part of the Labor caucus.

On Sunday morning, she told Mr Slipper that she thought he should remain out of the Speaker’s chair “for a further period of time”.

Mr Slipper stepped aside as Speaker last week amid allegations of misuse of tax-payer funded Cabcharge vouchers and sexual harassment of a staffer.

She added that it was her understanding that Mr Slipper would not be able to vote in Parliament.

Ms Gillard, who returned on the weekend from an Anzac Day trip to Turkey, said she had acted because “a line had been crossed” and she wanted to restore the public’s faith in the parliament.

“I feel keenly Australians are looking at this parliament and at the moment they see a dark cloud over it,” she said on Sunday.

“I want to be sure that Australians can look at this institution and feel respect for this institution.”

Mr Thomson’s move to the cross-bench reduce Labor’s numbers to 70 votes in the House of Representatives. The Coalition has 71 votes.

Labor also has the casting vote of Acting Speaker Anna Burke. Mr Thomson is expected to still vote with Labor.

On the cross-bench, the government retains agreements with Greens MP Adam Bandt and independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott.

Ms Gillard said it was important to respect Parliament but also to respect the presumption of innocence in relation to both Mr Slipper and Mr Thomson.

“Coming back to Australia, being right here now, I have felt very sharply the judgments and concerns of the Australian people,” she said.

“I’m not going to put myself in the position of adjudicating these matters … There is not one person standing here today, not me or any of you, who is in possession of the full facts of either or these matters.

“I don’t believe as a nation we want to get to the situation where people are prejudged.”

Questioned on whether she would now revisit independent MP Andrew Wilkie’s poker machine reforms, Ms Gillard said the proposal did not have enough support to pass Parliament and maintained her commitment to Labor’s proposed reforms.

Mr Wilkie tore up his agreement to support Labor earlier this year over its failure to deliver his reforms on pokie machines but has resumed talks, while independent MP Bob Katter and WA Nationals MP Tony Crook vote with the Coalition.

Ms Gillard reiterated her intention to bring the budget back into surplus.

Grubby politics destroying public confidence

As Labor grapples with the extreme politics of minority government, it is becoming clear that, driven by desperation to stay in power, this government has lost its bearings.

Neither the Peter Slipper affair nor the Health Services Union imbroglio have fully played out. It is not clear which, if any, current or former HSU officials, including MP Craig Thomson, may face charges over alleged rorting of union funds. Nor is it apparent whether the sexual harassment and travel entitlements misuse allegations against Mr Slipper are true.

With respect to the Slipper affair, we do not know if there has been any involvement by members of the Coalition, their staff, or the Liberal or National parties, in bringing the Slipper allegations to light. Certainly Tony Abbott’s responses when queried on this have not ruled anything much out.

What is obvious to the public at large is that in an atmosphere where the government’s grip on power is up for grabs every day, there has been a weakened sense of propriety.

Minority government has left the Labor Party, with Julia Gillard at the helm, seemingly incapable of making the wise choices necessary for good government.

Regardless of the outcome of the investigations, Mr Slipper was a very unwise choice as the Speaker of the House, and should never have been appointed to that role.

Given its pivotal role in our Parliament, this position should be filled by someone whose behaviour at the very least is not going to distract from the business of presiding over the Parliament.

Had the Prime Minister the fortitude, or even the interest, she should have investigated suggestions that Mr Slipper’s behaviour made him unsuitable.

Before he was appointed it was known that Mr Slipper was prone to errors in his travel entitlements. He had already been forced to pay back expenses wrongly claimed. Other questions were circling, and his own Liberal National Party, having tolerated his behaviour for years, was moving, glacially, towards disendorsing him.

And even though Mr Slipper has this week strenuously denied signing blank Cabcharge dockets, The Australian Financial Review reported on Friday that the payments listed on the dockets showed peculiar and extraordinary coincidences.

It is all very well to try to excuse the Slipper appointment as one that was made necessary by politics. At the time the Financial Review said that some regarded the move as using the Speaker’s role as a pawn in an arrangement of political convenience.

But forgetting for a moment the responsibility that Ms Gillard had to appoint someone as Speaker who was fit for the job, even if she was making a purely cynical political calculation, as she most surely was, the selection of Mr Slipper was ridiculously risky. If there is even the sniff of evidence of wrongdoing, it is dangerous to leave a government’s standing dependent on that person.

Ironically she made the Russian roulette-like move to appoint Mr Slipper because she had recanted from a high stakes promise made to Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie to implement poker machine reforms, in order to secure his backing for her minority government. That promise had unleashed a wave of lobbying by the poker machine industry and one James Packer, so Ms Gillard retreated. But in burning Mr Wilkie, she had to find another live body to vote for her government.

In the Financial Review this week, former Clerk of the Senate Harry Evans described Mr Slipper’s appointment as a low point in the degradation of the speakership and of the House of Representatives, which has been going on for decades.

The public’s appetite for politics is already at one of its lowest ebbs. This grubby episode, on the eve of one of the most important federal budgets in many years, further destroys public confidence in the political process. It will distract from, and may even subvert, the good the government is trying to achieve by restoring the budget to surplus.

The common thread between the HSU matter and the Slipper affair is that both involve an apparent abuse of entitlements by individuals on whose vote the government relies to maintain its grip on power, and the government has been doing whatever it takes to protect them. Thursday’s high level involvement of Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten in deciding to install an administrator to take control of the HSU, again raises questions about motive, as the immediate beneficiary is the government.

Rather than thinking only of its own survival, the government should start making some good choices. That could involve ruling out Mr Slipper’s return to the speakership even if he is cleared of all allegations of wrongdoing. The fact that Mr Wilkie would not support his return to the role has seemingly forced the government’s hand on this.

Good governance would also involve the government allowing the release of the Fair Work Australia report of its investigation into the HSU, as well as the HSU’s report by barrister Ian Temby and accountant Dennis Robertson, and even considering an independent process which can deal with allegations of misconduct or fraud within unions.

UPDATE: PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has asked embattled Labor backbencher Craig Thomson to quit the party and move to the cross-bench.

Brothel slips forged in Thomson affair

Craig Thomson battles report

Superman finally runs out of steam

In an effort to assert her leadership, Ms Gillard made the announcement in Canberra this morning, ahead of Mr Thomson’s own press conference outside his electorate office in Tuggerah on the NSW Central Coast at 1pm.

“I understand the matters concerning Mr Thomson and Mr Slipper have caused Australians to become concerned about standards in public life today,” Ms Gillard told reporters.

She said Australians were looking at parliament and “seeing a dark cloud”.

Ms Gillard said after returning from overseas she spoke to Mr Thomson yesterday.

“I indicated to Mr Thomson I have decided it’s appropriate for him to no longer participate in the Labor caucus,” she said.

She has also asked Peter Slipper to step aside as Speaker for a period of time.

Mr Thomson has been the focus of claims of misuse of Health Services Union (HSU) funds during his time as its national secretary.

He allegedly used a union credit card to pay for prostitutes, lavish meals and cash withdrawals during his time as head of the union.

He is among several former and current HSU officials who are the subject of two Fair Work Australia investigations, police probes in NSW and Victoria, and an internal inquiry by former corruption buster Ian Temby QC.

Mr Thomson denies any wrongdoing during his time with the union from 2002 to 2007.

The move changes the make-up of the federal parliament, reducing Labor to 70 MPs, after deputy speaker Anna Burke takes over the Speaker’s chair from Mr Slipper, who is embroiled in allegations over taxi voucher misuse and sexual harassment.

It’s believed Mr Thomson will continue to support Labor as an independent.

The move comes as Mr Thomson will attempt to distance himself from the Government with the potentially damning release of a Fair Work Australia investigation into his alleged misconduct during his time as the Health Services Union boss.

Mr Thomson will continue to vote with the Gillard Government and will back any movement to quash no-confidence motions in the Government and the speakership of Peter Slipper, leaving Ms Gillard’s narrow grip on power intact, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Thomson’s announcement is another potential crippling blow to the prospects of Ms Gillard retaining power.

Friends of Craig Thomson, who have spoken to him in the past 24 hours, told the Herald Sun this morning that the embattled MP was trying to give Ms Gillard “clear air”.

“He is a formidable character and always Cabinet material but he’s done what he has to do to give the Prime Minister clear air,” the friend said.

“There was no pressure brought to bear, this was his call.”

But sources said last night Prime Minister Julia Gillard had asked Thomson to step aside.

But Mr Thomson will still vote with the Labor government from the crossbenches.

“He will still vote with Labor, he’s a Labor man but he had to do something to stop the continuing attacks by the Coalition and Kathy Jackson who are trying to make the Gillard government less stable,” the friend said.

“Craig wants to clear the air and give the Prime Minister a clear run, despite Kathy Jackson’s attempts to remove him.”

Health Services Union national secretary Kathy Jackson first raised allegations against Mr Thomson in April, 2009, which led to a Fair Work Australia investigation and to separate inquiries by Victorian and New South Wales police.

Mr Thomson was accused of making $100,000 worth of cash advances on a union credit card without providing receipts for expenses and of using the same card to pay for prostitutes.

Ms Jackson said this morning that Mr Thomson could not avoid the allegations by moving to the cross benches.

“He claims he is innocent, I hope he doesn’t sit there on the cross benches and stay silent,” she said.

“This doesn’t solve anything; he still needs to address the allegations. He owes the members of the HSU an explanation.”

Ms Jackson said she was not trying to destabilise the Gillard Government, but merely standing up for her members.

“It’s his actions, it’s not my actions. This is a little too late for the Labor Party and the union movement – the damage has already been done,” she said.

Mr Thomson’s lawyers have asked Fair Work Australia not to release an 1100-page report into the HSU, arguing it may prejudice a criminal investigation.

Victorian and New South Wales police investigations are ongoing.

UPDATE 21/05/12

Sorry if there is a draft that has been published…I was working on a piece related to Thomson’s joke of a speech, and it disappeared…

(I pressed publish and the post vanished) Shit I cannot be that popular I garnish Political attention in a Government falling apart leading up to an election…

(Even If they do,I have 3 backups, time stamped….)

I have a massive document I have been compiling for what seems years.

Rest assured (I know via the current survey, You have been enthusiastic in contributing to the truth. What a wanker)

2 weeks training for those massive sighs…re the wife…(drag her in for justification…)

The facts will make my blog…Am I being interfered with? I wonder…

I have you covered…

Here is an email, where he bragged to his comrades in Parliament…About the riches of suing those who dare question him.

I have copies of thousands of your emails, sent to me by serious parliamentarians who take their position, Honestly and seriously…Not as a free for all…

It is funny how anything Peter Slipper says Just does not seem to add up…UPDATES ON HIS CONS

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Robbo

UPDATE 05/05/12

Peter Slipper pleaded to retain ongoing use of paper Cabcharge dockets.
NOW WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?

EMBATTLED Speaker Peter Slipper pleaded to retain ongoing use of paper Cabcharge dockets despite high-level government concerns they could be “easily misused”.

In the latest twist in the scandal that has engulfed the Gillard government, it can be revealed Mr Slipper personally challenged a ruling in April 2006 to scrap paper vouchers in favour of electronic cards.

The Queensland MP is under Australian Federal Police investigation over his use of Cabcharge and has stood aside as Speaker until the Cabcharge and sexual harassment allegations, both of which he denies, are investigated.

Mr Slipper – who has in the past been forced to repay more than $20,000 in entitlements – was one of only two federal MPs using paper Cabcharge dockets when the Finance Department recommended they be axed. Out of how many MP’s at Canberra and around the place…Remember this was in 2006. And he still clinged onto the SCAM potential up until the present day…

Using the excuse it was all the driver’s fault as they did not have the electronic gadgets to do instant, accurate and accountable dockets. This has suited this despicable excuse of an MP down to a T.

I have pages of stuff about his off the record journeys to purchase booze, drink booze, wine and dine and get pissed (not to mention doing the same in Parliament House for years…His exploits are legendary.

His bid to try to retain the dockets raised suspicions with Howard government figures keen to crackdown on misuse of travel entitlements.

In a memo, finance said the vouchers were open to abuse due to “unclear handwriting” and “inadequate information for reporting purposes”.

“Cabcharge vouchers are also very difficult to trace and, in the event of being lost or stolen, are easily misused,” the department said in a letter to then Special Minister of State Gary Nairn. Mr Slipper tried to persuade Mr Nairn to allow him to continue to use the paper dockets.

“I had a call from (Mr Slipper) arguing the case to keep Cabcharge vouchers,” Mr Nairn said yesterday.

On April 5, 2006, in an email headed: “Cabcharge voucher books”, Mr Slipper wrote: “Hi Gary, you will recall we spoke about this issue recently and (I) was wondering whether there had been a successful outcome? Peter.”

Mr Slipper, whose Queensland electorate of Fisher is about 90 minutes drive from Brisbane, argued that his hire car arrangements required the use of Cabcharge vouchers.

Mr Nairns’ staff contacted two limousine companies – including Mr Slipper’s preferred supplier Oakcorp – which both confirmed they accepted Cabcharge through electronic transactions.

Mr Nairn, who lost his seat in 2007, pointed to a range of flaws with the vouchers and told a Liberal colleague: “I really couldn’t justify keeping the voucher system going.”

The AFP is investigating claims Mr Slipper would sign Cabcharge vouchers but leave his long-term Sydney driver Antwan Kaikaty to fill out other details – including the amount.

The Speaker is also facing sexual harassment allegations after male adviser James Ashby launched legal action in the Federal Court.

Mr Slipper declined to comment on the claims last night and requested “copies of this correspondence and details of concerns of the Department of Finance”.

It is funny how anything Peter Slipper says Just does not seem to add up. Here is an article from the Financial Review (who should know their stuff)

By Pamela Williams

Many dozens of limousine and taxi fares paid by the Speaker Peter Slipper for widely differing journeys in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and Canberra have been for identical sums of money, raising new questions amid the cascading claims and allegations levelled against the most senior office-holder in the Australian Parliament in the past week.

An analysis by The Australian Financial Review of taxi and limousine charges in 14 pages of documents released by the Department of Finance reveal what appear to be patterns in Cabcharge vouchers signed by Slipper in 2010 and 2011.

Sixteen different journeys taken by Slipper between January 2010 and January 2011 in Canberra, Sydney or Brisbane – with trips as varied as suburb-to-suburb, city-to-suburb or airport-to-suburb, and using seven different car or taxi companies – each cost $75.68.

For example, on a warm summer’s day (27 degrees) on Friday, January 8, 2010, the Sydney firm of RSL Cabs took Slipper on two trips: one from the airport to the city, and another from the city to the airport. In a striking coincidence, given the ebb and flow of Sydney’s traffic swarms, the fare each way was exactly $75.68.

It was perhaps an expensive run for Slipper, given the average taxi fare between downtown Sydney and the airport – while far from predictable – is about $30 to $40. It seemed unfortunate and almost against the odds for Slipper to take two taxis charging identical city-to-airport fares of $75.68 at different times, on the same day.

If Slipper were a betting man, he might have seen a sign that he could beats the odds when exactly a year later, back in Sydney, he took another RSL taxi on January 7, 2011 – noted suburbs-to-suburbs (but presumably different suburbs to a year before) – and the fare yet again was exactly $75.68.

Another 12 trips by Slipper between January 2010 and March 2011 all cost precisely $85.77 each. These ranged from a journey from Parliament House, Canberra, to the suburbs, three other trips described as suburbs-to-suburbs or suburbs-to-airport, using car companies as disparate as Babylon Investment Group, Canberra Hire Cars, Marcellus K Gill and Oakcorp Limousines, which services south-east Queensland.

In Canberra, Slipper took three trips using Canberra Hire Cars between November 2 and November 5, 2010, and each trip cost exactly $65.59.

A figure of $95.86 was the exact cost of 22 different trips by Slipper between March 2010 and March 2011. A trip on July 27, 2010, with his favoured Queensland limo service, Oakcorp Limousines, from Brisbane to the suburbs was paid by Slipper using his taxpayer-funded Cabcharge card. The bill was $95.86. The fare for a trip with Oakland Limo on March 19, 2011, from the airport to Brisbane was $95.86. The fare on January 20, 2010, from the Canberra suburbs to Parliament House was $95.86. So, too, was a trip on April 22, 2010, with Brisvegas Limos from the suburbs to Brisbane.

Slipper took 24 trips between February and July 2010 from his home in Buderim, Queensland, to Brisbane or Brisbane airport (or the other way from Brisbane to Buderim) where the fare was $327.95 on each occasion.

Five of these trips were with Lazmar Limousines and the other 19 trips were with Oakcorp limousines. The fares, however, were were all the same.

During the same time frame, Slipper took a further seven trips between Buderim and either Brisbane airport or Brisbane city, all with Oakcorp, with the exception of one ride with Lazmar. On all these trips – regardless of whether they were from Buderim to Brisbane or vice versa – the fare was exactly $338.05 each time, suggesting a most precise taxi meter operating in the vehicle.

During eight limo trips with Lazmar or Oakcorp between August 2010 and June 2011 (again Buderim-Brisbane, Brisbane-Buderim), the fare was exactly $287.59.

In 2010, trips on January 19, January 31, February 5, and March 6, using four car companies (A.L. Prosser, Babylon Investment Group, Marcellus K Gill, and Oakcorp Limousines) to be driven variously from Brisbane airport to the suburbs, as well as other suburb-to-suburb fares, all came to the same amount: $146.32. A year later, United Yellow Cabs SA took Slipper suburbs-to-suburbs, and that, too, was $146.32.

Slipper’s cars rarely list the suburbs he visits on his Cabcharge receipts unless the destination is Buderim or Brisbane. Seven trips in 2010 (January 19, 30, February 24, 27, March 19, July 11 and July 27) using cars in Canberra, Brisbane and elsewhere, stated only airport-to-suburbs, suburb-to-suburb, with one exception of Brisbane-to-suburbs – all with the same fare of $126.14.

Slipper’s drivers appear to have an almost eerie ability to take travel routes in different parts of Australia where the fares match up to the last cent. For example, on April 15, 2010, Darwin company Taxis Top End appeared on Slipper’s Cabcharge with a bill for $70.64. On November 2, 2010, Canberra Hire cars charged Slipper for a trip suburbs-to-city at $70.64. Just four months later on March 10, 2011, Babylon Investment Group appeared on Slipper’s taxi docket for a trip suburbs-to-suburbs at $70.64.

Slipper’s travel between his Buderim home and Brisbane by limousine, mostly using Oakcorp Limousines but sometimes using Lazmar, also revealed some surprising differentials.

The online calculator for Yellow Cabs in Queensland estimates the fare between Buderim and Brisbane at $215.

But on 70 trips taken between January and July 2010, Slipper paid fares ranging from $312.82 (nine trips) to $322.91 (eight trips), $327.95 (24 trips), $333.00 (nine trips), $338.05 (seven trips), $348.14 (five trips). All of these fares were paid with Slipper’s electronic Cabcharge card.

But Department of Finance records also list other fares using the same limousine service, Oakcorp Limousines, for travel between Buderim and Brisbane during 2010 and 2011 which Slipper paid with a Cabcharge docket filled out by hand.

Covering the period August 2010 to May 2011, the fares paid with paper dockets supplied to the cab driver by Slipper range from $236.36 (13 trips) to $245.45 (25 trips), $250.00 (eight trips), $254.55 (six trips), $259.09 (four trips), $263.64 (three trips) and $268.18 (three trips). These fares, paid manually, are almost $80 to $100 less than those paid electronically.

Slipper did not reply to questions last night about the reason for the disparity.

One astonishing overlap in Slipper’s travels occurred during a trip to Perth in the winter of 2010. On July 1, according to Freedom of Information records now unravelling Slipper’s travel, he arrived in Perth and took a cab from Swans Taxi Co-Op at 11.11am, travelling to East Perth and paying a fare of $40.36. Almost simultaneously, at 11.12am Slipper picked up an Avis hire car in Perth which he kept for several days, returning it on July 3 and paying $348.72.

Other oddities in Slipper’s hire car use have emerged in a Financial Review investigation. For November 14, 2010, Oakcorp Limousines submitted two manual vouchers signed by Slipper – both airport-to Brisbane on the same day, and both for $86.36.

Then on November 19, 2010, Slipper signed a manual docket for Oakcorp Limousines for travel from Brisbane to Buderim – at a cost of $86.36.

He also signed a manual docket for what appears to be a wholly different trip – from Brisbane airport to Brisbane for $245.45 – suggesting a mix-up in his dockets.

On February 5, 2011, Slipper signed an electronic Cabcharge bill for Lazmar Limousines for a trip from Brisbane to Brisbane airport – for $297.68 – a journey for which he usually paid between $68 and $86 (although regularly up to $136, an amount perhaps startling to Brisbanites).

On two consecutive days in July 2010, Slipper stacked up four limousine trips between Buderim and the airport or Brisbane CBD. Three of these took place on just one day, July 27. The records suggest that Slipper took a car from Buderim to the airport on July 26 (at a cost of $333). He presumably flew to Canberra. The next day, July 27, a commonwealth car took Slipper on a 34-minute trip early in the morning. He then flew back to Brisbane, where he took a limo from Brisbane airport to Buderim ($327.95).

Still on July 27, Slipper travelled from Buderim to Brisbane (348.14) before turning around to head back to Buderim ($343.09). He somehow also found time on the day to notch up two limousine trips between Brisbane and the suburbs ($126.14 and $95.86).

At the end of 2010, a rather more startling picture emerges.

According to the records, Slipper travelled on December 29, 2010, using Oakcorp Limousines from his home in Buderim to Brisbane. He paid using electronic Cabcharge a fare of $287.59. On the same day, December 29, 2010, Slipper also signed a manual Cabcharge to pay Oakcorp Limousines for the same trip from Buderim to Brisbane at a cost of $245.45. No records exist showing a return trip in between from Brisbane to Buderim.

The Speaker stood aside this week after a welter of allegations – yet to be tested in court – that he had abused his relationship of power with an adviser in his office.

The adviser, James Ashby, has filed a civil suit claiming that Slipper pressured him for favours during a string of encounters at Slipper’s Canberra flat and through text messaging. Ashby also alleged Slipper had handed bundles of Cabcharge dockets to car hire drivers in exchange for journeys taken earlier this year. These are separate from the travel records released by the Department of Finance, referred to here. The furore that has since enveloped Slipper has been enough to see him stand aside as Speaker, casting the minority Labor government into unknown territory as the federal budget looms.

Last night, though, Slipper released copies of the Cabcharge dockets he says were referred to in Ashby’s affidavit. He said they clearly show that he had signed and filled out all elements of the dockets himself in his own handwriting. He described the criminal allegation regarding the Cabcharges as a complete fabrication.

It is funny how anything Peter Slipper says Just does not seem to add up. Here is an article from the Financial Review (who should know their stuff)

By Pamela Williams

An analysis by The Australian Financial Review of taxi and limousine charges in 14 pages of documents released by the Department of Finance reveal what appear to be patterns in Cabcharge vouchers signed by Slipper in 2010 and 2011.