A Kiwi former prostitute has become embroiled in an Australian sex scandal involving a Wellington-born federal MP.
Labor MP Craig Thomson is accused of illegally spending $646,000 (AUS$500,000) of trade union funds, including using his union credit card to pay for escorts.
Now, it has emerged that a New Zealand-born woman is at the centre of the ongoing political soap opera.
Australian media has today reported that the woman had worked as an escort with Sydney's Boardroom Escorts.
The Gold Coast Bulletin says the woman, now in her 30s, has left the sex industry and moved north to Murwillumbah, to work for a thoroughbred horse trainer.
The paper says she worked as a strapper before her NSW Racing registration expired last October.
But now the unnamed woman has been taken to an overseas location after Channel 9's A Current Affair programme offered her $77,500 to speak about her alleged encounters with the Dobell MP.
Former colleagues of the woman told the Gold Coast Bulletin they were not surprised she had been a prostitute.
Rumours of her past had circulated in the tightly knit Queensland community for years.
It is the latest twist to emerge in the saga that has rocked Australia politics.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper today reported that NSW police have passed on details of at least one escort agency transaction to colleagues in Victoria.
Police are investigating whether Thomson illegally spent up to $646,000 of Health Services Union (HSU) funds, including $7750 on prostitutes, using two credit cards between 2002 and 2007.
The HSU and Thomson, who led the union from 2002 to his election as an Australian Labor Party MP in 2007, face a series of police investigations, parliamentary inquiries and Federal Court cases relating to maladministration and misuse of members' funds.
In a statement to parliament this week, Thomson claimed that in 2004 union officials threatened they would frame him with prostitutes.
Responding to questions, Thomson claimed: "I have done nothing wrong.''
He added that "enough was enough''.
A Current Affair last night revealed that, on top of $7750 used on his union credit cards on prostitutes, another $995 had been paid to a company called Boardroom Escorts in Sydney for in May 2005.
The payment was made to Internat Immobilaire, a cover name for Boardroom Escorts, the programme alleged.
The programme said they have interviewed the former prostitute who also signed a statutory declaration that she provided services to Thomson.
A Current Affair said it had not yet paid the woman but a fee was being negotiated if the story went ahead.
The report stated that Thomson was in Sydney on May 7, 2005 when the transaction allegedly took place.
Thomson had previously identified the transaction on his Commonwealth Bank Mastercard as a "dinner function''.
