CRAIG Thomson today pleaded "enough is enough" as his record came under further scrutiny from the Opposition and he prepared for a prostitute to tell a national TV audience he was a customer.

He accused the Opposition of "wanting to push someone to the brink", addressing fears for his personal stability, rather than have them deal with policy issues.



It was a clear appeal for sympathy which caught his former colleagues in the ALP by surprise.



"How many inquiries do we really need to be looking at this?" he said.



Opposition Leader Tony Abbott later took his attack on Mr Thomson to a new level, using Parliament to call for the MP's resignation just hours after the former union leader appealed to be left alone.

Abbott calls for Thomson's resignation

And the credibility of the Privileges Committee investigating Mr Thomson's record has been damaged by a leak to a journalist from the confidential proceedings of its first meeting on the matter, held last night.



Mr Thomson declined to take questions when he called reporters for a brief statement in which he pleaded that there already had been nine investigations of his time as national secretary of the Health Services Union, and his use of union funds.



"At the moment I'm subject to ... we've had Fair Trading in NSW look at the issues of the HSU, we've had the NSW police on two occasions, we've had the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) on two occasions and they've all finished their investigations," he said.



"There's an on-going investigation by the Victorian police. We also have now been referred to privileges and a couple of other committees.



"What I'm here to say is, guys, enough is enough, really. I mean, how many inquiries do we actually need to be looking at this?



"What would be really good would be for the Opposition to get on and do the sort of work that they need to be doing in terms of good policy issues and let this circus kind of roll on.



"I'm not sure how much scrutiny that people expect is needed to these issues but I think that nine investigations probably does it. We also have of course pending court action in relation to civil charges that the general manager of Fair Work (Australia) has outlined."



He said it was a "completely ridiculous situation" that a prostitute has apparently been paid $60,000 by the Nine Network for an interview in which it is believed she identifies Mr Thomson as a customer.



He said the reported fee for the interview, expected to be shown next week, was "10 times as much money as was alleged to have been used by the HSU credit card in terms of prostitutes".

The program denies they paid $60,000 to the former prostitute who it says has provided new evidence on Craig Thomson.

The program said in a statement "we want to emphasise that no-one has received any payment from A Current Affair''.

"We have not published or broadcast a story. In fact, our investigation is ongoing,'' said the statement.

"We reject Mr. Thomson's claims of `grubby journalism'. Grubby journalists would have already run a story, without giving him the opportunity to examine the information.''

Executive producer Grant Williams says he has a statutory declaration from the woman, who was working in Sydney during the mid-2000s.

"There is a statutory declaration that has been completed by a former prostitute," he told Macquarie Radio.



Thomson repeated today that he had "consistently said from the start that I have done no wrong-doing. I continue to say that".



"Is this about trying to push someone to the brink?" he said.



"I mean, really, there are enough investigative processes now available there that if people have things that they want to say, go through those proper processes."



Mr Thomson appeared at a spot in the grounds usually used for press conferences with no previous announcement.



Labor tactician in the House of Representatives Anthony Albanese had been talking to reporters about an apparent leak from the Privileges Committee looking into Mr Thomson's statement to Parliament last Monday.



Mr Albanese had seen someone waiting for him to finish his press conference and thought it was his Liberal counterpart Christopher Pyne, and kept talking for as long as he could. It was actually Mr Thomson.



Earlier, the chair of the Privileges Committee, Labor's Yvette D'Ath told Parliament today that there had been a leak from the committee after the first meeting on the Thomson inquiry.



The "unauthorised disclosure" of matters came despite an agreement on confidentiality.



"At the meeting the committee specifically discussed that it was important that members not disclose matters of the committee while it was considering a very important issue of privilege that had been referred by the House," she said.



"I am extremely disappointed that this disclosure had occurred. I am unsure of the source of the disclosure."



Ms D'Ath said there would be an investigation into the leak of the details of the committee investigations.