Embattled former federal Labor MP Craig Thomson has pleaded guilty to migration fraud, four years after his arrest.
Australian Federal Police officers searched Thomson’s home in Wamberal on the NSW Central Coast in July 2021 and arrested him three months later under a multi-agency investigation into an alleged major visa and migration scam dating back to 2019.
Former federal Labor MP Craig Thomson outside court in 2023.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Thomson was accused of facilitating fraudulent visa applications in the food service and regional farmworker industries.
The matter was listed for a NSW District Court trial next month, but court records show that the 61-year-old pleaded guilty to various fraud offences on Friday.
Loading
Thomson is due to be sentenced in December on 18 counts of delivering a document containing false statement under the Migration Act, one count of presenting a forged or false document under the Migration Act, one count of dealing with the proceeds of crime equal to or more than $50,000, and two counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
Nine related charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception will be taken into account.
In March 2024, Thomson was sentenced to a 14-month intensive correction order for spending tens of thousands of dollars fraudulently claimed in COVID-19 small business grants on personal expenses including a credit card, private school fees, accommodation, a car lease and mortgage repayments.
Thomson was the national secretary of the Health Services Union before he was elected as the member for Dobell, on the NSW Central Coast, in 2007. He was suspended from the Labor Party in 2012 and contested the election in 2013 as an independent, but was defeated.
While the Health Services Union’s national secretary, Thomson misused union funds on sex workers and fine dining and was found guilty in 2015 over the scandal.
