When politician Craig Thomson was publicly accused of using his union credit card to pay for prostitutes, his wife Zoe Arnold was expecting their first baby.
Three years, a wedding and two children after the first allegations were made, Zoe has written a passionate defence of her beleaguered husband in the August issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly.
“A lot of people have made their minds up about my husband,” she writes. “They see him as a philanderer, a man who’s loose with his money and his morals. I don’t know that man.
“I know a man who brings me a cup of tea every morning in bed. A man who dotes on his daughters. A man who tells me every day how much he loves me, how much he loves our little family.
“One of my favourite quotes is from Michael Leunig: ‘Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and difficult as that.’ I love my husband. This will all end one day and then we will still have each other.”
Zoe says she initially assumed the accusations made against Craig were true, and urged him to confess. She was surprised when he denied any wrongdoing, but has stuck by him ever since.
“I told Craig the day the first story had come out that life would be much easier for us if he confessed to visiting brothels and admitted he had used his work credit card,” Zoe says.
“Craig looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘But I didn’t do it’, a statement he has repeated publicly and privately again and again.
“Don’t get me wrong — I didn’t want the stories to be true. I just knew that if Craig were to protest his innocence, he would have to fight to be heard. Three years on, we are still fighting.”
Read more of this story in the August issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
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