The Federal Government says it will continue to pursue Craig Thomson for misleading Parliament with his claim that a rival union official framed him as having slept with prostitutes.

Thomson was yesterday convicted of fraud and theft for using his Health Services Union (HSU) credit card to pay for prostitutes during his time as the HSU's national secretary, before he entered the Federal Parliament as the Member for Dobell in 2007.

In an emotional statement to Parliament in 2012, Thomson claimed his enemies had cloned his phone and obtained his credit card and licence, which they then used to arrange and pay for escort services.

"There was, though, a particular threat that was made that I thought was just part of the routine threats that were constantly made in working in this environment," Mr Thomson said at the time.

"That was a threat by Marco Bolano in words to the effect that he would seek to ruin any political career that I sought and would set me up with a bunch of hookers."

Mr Pyne said Thomson's statement to Parliament needed to be re-examined in light of yesterday's conviction and called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten for support.

"[Bill Shorten] needs to indicate whether he'll give bi-partisan support to a privileges committee investigation of whether Craig Thomson deliberately lied to Parliament when he made his statement, and if he is prepared to give bi-partisan support to that we'll consider moving that motion," Mr Pyne said in Adelaide.

Mr Shorten, however, says the Parliament's processes should be above politicking.

"It is most important therefore that whatever the privileges committee does, the process is not politicised or abused for short-term political gains," he told reporters in Melbourne.

Mr Pyne also repeated the Coalition's calls for Mr Shorten to apologise to the public for running a "protection racket" for Thomson.

Labor's New South Wales division funded the disgraced MP's legal defence to the value of $350,000.

Asked whether the party would apologise for "protecting" Mr Thomson, the Labor leader repeated his statement that "no-one is above the law".

Plibersek 'glad the law caught up' with Thomson

Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek said Thomson's conviction is a relief.

"I'm glad the law's caught up with him. I think everybody deserves their day in court. We shouldn't prejudge people - that's part of our long-standing tradition in Australia, that you get to have your day in court," she said.

"But if you did the wrong thing, I'm glad that he's been caught and I'm glad he'll suffer the consequences."

HSU national assistant secretary Chris Brown says Thomson should go to jail for his crimes.

"He already has obviously paid a very hefty price in terms of almost destroying his life," he said.

"But I think the court has the ability to give him a custodial sentence of five years and I think the prosecution should be asking for that."

Labor MP says colleagues finding it difficult to condemn Thomson

Labor backbencher Alannah MacTiernan, who joined the Parliament last year, says her caucus colleagues from the previous Parliament are finding it difficult to condemn a man they worked with and consider a friend.

"These are people who have known Craig Thomson and probably have developed friendships with him over many years," she said.

"They see him now having gone through, and quite properly, a very public process where he has been publicly disgraced.

"Politicians are human. The guy's probably going to jail [and] the idea of going in there and twisting the knife to someone you personally know may be a very difficult thing to do."

But Ms MacTiernan said Thomson's "self-indulgent" behaviour was "absolutely disgraceful".

"This man is a man that has brought the union movement, and brought the Labor Party, into disrepute," she said.

"The thing that really makes me angry with the self indulgence that we see with Craig Thomson is just how he has played into the hands of the Liberals, the right-wingers who now have control of their Liberal Party and their desire to bring down the union movement."

Hunger for reform within Labor Party, says MacTiernan

Ms MacTiernan said there was a hunger in Labor for reform within unions and within the party.

She said the Thomson case was the perfect example for why the party needed reforming to reduce the power of union bosses and empower the rank and file.

"My real focus here is in fact to ensure that as the Labor Party goes forward, we don't have these individuals who have this massive power base within the Labor Party which in turn gives rise to the sort of hubris where a guy thinks that he can pay himself half a million dollars a year from union memberships and on top of that get access to brothels and pornographic films," she said.

"The lesson that the Labor Party's got to learn [is that] we've got to change our structures to make power more diffuse so it is less likely that individuals develop this incredible hubris that comes with too much power and not enough checks and balances."

Asked whether Julia Gillard should have relied on Thomson's vote to keep her minority government intact, even after the industrial umpire had made findings against him, Ms MacTiernan said the former prime minister's call was "arguable".

"I guess some really hard equations had to be made [such as] do you walk away from government?" she said.

"I guess a judgment was made that in order to do the good things you needed to do for the community... they needed to stay in government. Now whether or not that was the right judgment is arguable.

"Quite frankly, Craig Thomson, if he'd had any decency would have himself stepped down from the Labor Party."