ANALYSIS: Prostitution scandal threatens Australia's Labor government

By Sid Astbury Aug 21, 2011, 6:40 GMT

Sydney - Hundreds of angry truck drivers rolled into Canberra on Sunday demanding Prime Minister Julia Gillard call fresh parliamentary elections that opinion polls show Tony Abbott's conservatives would win.

'Every decision they make seems to be an absolute blunder,' National Road Freighters Association president Mick Pattel told reporters.

'We're just hoping that the government might turn around and say, 'well, there's such a backlash from the community and from the business community that we'll go back to the polls to get a mandate.''

The truckers may find that Labor backbencher Craig Thomson will force the election for them.

Thomson, head of the Health Services Union before entering parliament in 2007, is denying accusations that he used a union-issued credit card to pay Sydney prostitutes in 2005.

He does not deny that arrangements with the Tiffany's escort agency were made using his mobile phone and the fees were paid with his credit card. But he insists that the card, phone and his driving license were stolen and that an unnamed offender had forged his signature to pay the bill, authenticating it with his driver's license number.

Gillard's year-old government would lose the single vote that keeps it in office if Thomson resigns and, as seems likely, the subsequent by-election was won by the Liberal-National coalition.

Abbott said that Thomson's story 'stretches credulity beyond the breaking point.'

But the former union boss enjoys the support of his party and for three straight days last week Gillard expressed 'complete confidence' in him.

Thomson dropped defamation proceedings against the newspaper that exposed the prostitution deal. He was held responsible for the legal costs, which the party picked up.

'This really has now gone from being just an issue for Craig Thomson to being a big issue for the prime minister,' Abbott said on Ten Network television. 'You can't have a prime minister who refused to answer reasonable questions about what she knew and what she did.'

Thomson is not answering the obvious questions, and Gillard is not asking them.

If he is guiltless, why did he drop the defamation suit? Why did he not report his credit card, mobile phone and driving licence stolen? And, if not Thomson, who was it that ran up the bills at Tiffany's that he admits were paid for out of the union dues of low-paid health workers?

Abbott's forces smell blood.

Thomson's survival, and that of the Gillard government, seems to rest on someone other than Thomson coming forward and admitting to paying prostitutes with union dues.

'One (possibility) is that a thief broke into Craig's house and he stole Craig's mobile phone, he stole Craig's credit card and he stole Craig's driving license,' National Party heavyweight Barnaby Joyce told Network 10. 'He then went back to (Thomson's house), broke back in and put everything back where he found it.

'The other possibility is it is Craig Thomson.'