Angus Taylor’s office referred to police over attack on Clover Moore

Angus Taylor denies forging a document used to attack Sydney’s Lord Mayor as Labor calls in police.

Minister for Energy Angus Taylor during Question Time on Thursday.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has denied forging a document or misrepresenting its contents to attack Sydney Lord Mayor ­Clover Moore over travel expenses, as Labor vowed to ask NSW police to investigate.

A letter from Mr Taylor to Ms Moore critic­ising her for ­hypo­critically ­driving up carbon emissions by spending more than $15m in council money on domestic and inter­national travel contained grossly inflated travel costs. The letter, later reported in Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph, said City of Sydney councillors had spent $1.7m on international travel and $14.2m on domestic travel.

However, the council’s 2017-18 ­annual report, available online, shows Ms Moore’s inter­national out-of-pocket travel costs were only $1727.77 and domestic costs were $4206.32.

Ms Moore said on Thursday night she had “provided conclusive metadata to prove our annual report documents have been available online, unchanged, since November 2018 … if the minister expects the public to ­believe his version of events, as implausible as they seem, it is ­incumbent on him to now provide evidence”.

The police referral comes after Labor launched a scathing attack on Mr Taylor in question time on Thursday, using a slew of questions to investigate the minister over the wildly disparate figures.

“We need to know whether the forgery was tailor-made, because­ it looks exactly like that,” opposition frontbencher Tony Burke told parliament.

Mr Taylor told parliament he had been “advised” the document was drawn directly from the City of Sydney’s website. When asked by opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler whether he could say that his office did not forge a document on travel expenses, Mr Taylor replied­: “Yes.” Asked where he got the “forged” document, Mr Taylor said: “I ­reject the premise of the question and the bizarre assertions peddled by those opposite.”

Asked a third time where he got the document that inflated the figures surrounding travel expenses, Mr Taylor said: “The document was drawn directly from the City of Sydney’s website.”

Mr Butler said Mr Taylor had refused to prove he had downloaded a document forwarded to The Daily Telegraph from the City of Sydney website.

“It is a claim that just does not stand up to scrutiny and for which he will not provide any evidence,” Mr Butler said.

“It is quite clear Angus Taylor has refused or declined to make a report himself to the NSW police. The Prime Minister is clearly not intending to make a referral himself­ to the NSW police.

“In the absence of any action by this government to clear this up and ensure the public has the right to know what has happened here, the Labor Party, through the shadow attorney-general, will be writing to NSW police seeking an investigation about the circumstances surrounding this matter.”

ALP strategists believe Mr ­Taylor is the weak link in cabinet, with the opposition also pursuing him over claims he interfered with an inquiry into Jam Land, a Taylor family company that faced questions from the federal Environment Department over ­alleged illegal land clearing.