Mr Thomson was last year fined by a County Court judge over the misuse of Health Services Union money on sex and fine dining, and the court was told on Friday he was currently paying monthly instalments of $50 - a rate at which it would take 41 years to pay the penalty.

Mr Thomson avoided a jail term last year but was fined when found guilty of 13 counts of theft, related to the withdrawals of $5650 from ATMs with HSU credit cards, while he was the union's national secretary between 2002 and 2007.

He used the money to pay for sex and fine dining expenses for he and his then wife.

The former Labor MP for the NSW seat of Dobell told judge Lisa Hannan on Friday that he and his wife currently earned about $3000 a month, had little equity in their home and no savings.

But Judge Hannan said it was inappropriate that Mr Thomson pay only $50 a month, and told him he needed to devise a plan on how to pay the fine quicker.

"To put it bluntly, this is what stands between you and you going to jail, so something needs to be done," the judge told the former MP.

The court heard Mr Thomson could have some of the fine converted to unpaid community work.

The fine equated to 847 hours of community work, the court was told.

That is the equivalent of about 105 eight-hour days.

Mr Thomson told the court he had borrowed $400,000 from his parents and intended to pay back that loan.

Mr Thomson was represented by Greg James, QC - a former judge of the NSW Supreme Court - in his trial in Melbourne Magistrates Court, and the subsequent appeal in the County Court, along with junior lawyers.

During a plea hearing last year, a judge was told Mr Thomson had incurred legal bills of $400,000 and that occasional consulting work was his only form of employment.

Mr Thomson, representing himself in court on Friday, was advised by Judge Hannan to get legal advice on how to pay his fine and return to court in a month.

Mr Thomson was in March last year sentenced to three months in jail, with nine months suspended, when a magistrate found him guilty of 65 fraud and theft charges.

But Mr Thomson did not serve any time in jail because his legal team launched an immediate appeal. In December a County Court judge found him not guilty on most of those offences because the prosecution had worded the charges incorrectly.

Mr Thomson, who was fined with a conviction, lost the seat of Dobell at the 2013 election standing as an independent, after he was cut adrift by Labor.

Mr Thomson will also return to the Federal Court next month to face a civil trial launched by the Fair Work Commission, which is chasing the former MP for more than $240,000 in compensation plus penalties for breaches of federal law and union rules.

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