Bizarrely altered document sparks scandal for the government

One sentence in this letter to Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has sparked a bizarre scandal — and the police are about to become involved.

A senior government minister’s office will face scrutiny from police over a mysteriously altered document it used to attack Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus wrote to NSW Police today asking them to investigate the matter.

The minister in question here is Angus Taylor, who holds the energy and emissions reduction portfolio. Late last month, he wrote a letter to Ms Moore suggesting she should cut down on her council’s carbon emissions by travelling less.

“You might be interested to know that there are many practical ways local councils can take real and meaningful action to reduce their carbon emissions. One such example is to limit unnecessary air travel,” Mr Taylor wrote.

“Given your most recent annual report shows your council spent $1.7 million on international travel, and $14.2 million on domestic travel, there is a real opportunity for your council to make a meaningful contribution to reducing Australia’s emissions.”

The letter was a direct response to Ms Moore, who had previously written to the government, urging it to treat climate change as a “national emergency” and drive down emissions.

“Thank you again for bringing your concerns to the government’s attention,” Mr Taylor said. I’ll leave you to conclude whether there was any sarcasm in that line.

The letter Angus Taylor sent to Clover Moore.

The crux of this bizarre scandal is Mr Taylor’s claim that the City of Sydney Council spent a staggering total of $15.9 million on travel in 2017-18.

When The Daily Telegraph published a story about his letter on September 30, Ms Moore disputed that figure.

“Just because he ignores the facts on climate change, doesn’t mean the minister can make up figures to distract Australians from his failure of leadership,” Ms Moore said.

“The City of Sydney spent less than $300,000 in travel and accommodation expenses in the 2017-18 financial year.

“He should focus on reducing emissions and providing reliable energy, not making up figures about travel by local government officials.”

In response, Mr Taylor’s office sent the Telegraph some pages from the council’s annual report, which showed a total travel spend of $15.9 million.

Here is where it gets interesting. The full annual report in question is available online, and it clearly contradicts the version provided by Mr Taylor’s office.

Mr Taylor’s version showed $1.7 million had been spent on international travel and $14.2 million on domestic — the figures cited by the minister in his letter.

On the corresponding page, the original version shows councillors spent just $4206 on international travel and $1728 on domestic.

Even when all council employees are taken into account, the total only rises to $229,000, which is obviously still well short of $15.9 million.

The council's annual report, as it appears now. The relevant figures are circled.

The obvious question is, where the heck did the $15.9 million figure come from?

Mr Taylor’s office claims it downloaded its version of the report from the City of Sydney Council’s website on September 6.

However, as The Guardian first reported, the council has metadata proving the report on its site has not been edited since it was first uploaded in November of last year.

The accusation from Labor is that someone, perhaps in Mr Taylor’s office, doctored the original document to make it seem as though the council had spent far more on travel than it actually did.

That would obviously be an extremely weird thing to do.

Mr Taylor was grilled on the subject during Question Time yesterday, and he dismissed the forgery allegation as “bizarre”.

Labor’s Mark Butler asked whether he would say the “forgery” was not made by him or his office.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Where did the minister get the forged document?” Mr Butler followed up.

“I absolutely reject the premise of the question and the bizarre assertions being peddled by those opposite,” said Mr Taylor.

“Where did he get the document?” Mr Butler repeated, dropping the word “forged”.

“The document was drawn directly from the City of Sydney’s website,” Mr Taylor said.

“Does the minister stand by his claim that he downloaded the document from the City of Sydney’s website in light of information released today by the City, that metadata logs proved conclusively that the original documents had not been altered since being uploaded to their website almost 12 months ago?” Mr Butler asked.

“As I say again, I am advised that document was drawn from the City of Sydney website and it was publicly available. I reject the bizarre suggestions and assertions being peddled by those opposite,” Mr Taylor responded.

Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor during Question Time. Picture: AAP/Mick Tsikas

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. Picture: Richard Dobson

Those answers did not satisfy Labor. Mr Butler and Mr Dreyfus held a press conference shortly after Question Time to announce they would refer the matter to NSW Police.

They insisted on calling it a “tailor-made” scandal, because politicians love awful puns.

“There are now more questions about this tailor-made scandal, about the documents provided to The Daily Telegraph by Angus Taylor, than there were at the beginning of Question Time,” Mr Butler said.

“The actual report, which was uploaded almost 12 months ago, has not been altered since that time. So it is quite clear that Angus Taylor was working with a different document. The document that he provided the Telegraph has different formatting, different spacing and different font as well as, obviously, very different numbers.”

The pair pointed to two criminal offences they believed may have been committed.

“The New South Wales Crimes Act provides that the making of a forged document that is intended to influence the exercise of a public duty by a publicly elected official, like the Lord Mayor of Sydney, is a serious indictable offence punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment,” said Mr Butler.

“It is also clear that the New South Wales Crimes Act provides that a failure to make a report about such a document to the New South Wales police is also a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment, after a person becomes aware of the forgery.

“The circumstances surrounding Minister Taylor could not be clearer. He refused today, during Question Time, to do what the City of Sydney has done and release metadata logs that back up his claim that he downloaded that document from the City of Sydney website. It is a claim that does not stand up to scrutiny and for which he will not provide any evidence.

“We gave Angus Taylor a number of opportunities to clarify what has happened here. All he would do is deny the clearly obvious thing, which is this document is a forgery.

“Instead, he tries to pretend this is not a forged document, when all of the evidence is to the contrary.”

Labor isn’t going to let this one drop.