What if Craig blubbereth the truth?
I and many others who have witnessed this squalid saga have come to the conclusion that union bosses and the wider ALP generally see union funds as a constantly refilled trough for them to burrow their snouts into at will.
So maybe as Craig Thomson argued yesterday by only squandering $500000 that makes him one of the good guys despised as a goody two shoes by his union cohorts.
Certainly it is no less convincing an arguement than:
the cloned phone;
or show me the 4 year old brothel tapes;
or they hate me because I was trying to stop the rorting;
or why was Tony Abbott doing lurking under my bathroom window (OK maybe that was the media);
I mean after all Julia Gillard got away scot-free after helping her then boyfriend Bruce Wilson the AWU boss steal $1000000 from his union and disappear into the wind . Maybe $1 mill is seen as the cut off point and any more than that it is considered a bit tacky. Perhaps it is like superannuation and say $200 k a year is the unofficial entitlement whereas $300K a year might be seen as overly tickleing the till. Mind you it might be a percentage of the annual income rather than a set figure . The AWU is a huge union so that might explain why $1 million was a mere bagatelle in this case.
On the other hand Mr Thomson may be a pariah because he was careless enough to get caught and even then he is clearly far less of one than Kathy Jackson who was indiscreet enough to allow the spotlight of public scrutiny to focus on this sordid practice.