The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, has queried whether the energy minister, Angus Taylor, has misled parliament in his answers about an altered document that was used to attack the climate record of Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore.
Taylor has been under sustained pressure to explain how an altered page of the City of Sydney’s annual report was sent by his office to the Daily Telegraph, which wrote a critical story effectively accusing the lord mayor of being a hypocrite on climate change.
The document, which was also quoted in a letter Taylor sent to Moore and the Telegraph, showed spending on travel by councillors in excess of $15m. This was many times the figures that actually appear in the 2017-18 annual report.
The issue is continuing to dog the government.
At Monday’s council meeting Moore did not mention Taylor or the document but on the ABC’s 7.30 report she said: “We would have spent most of our time in the air [to achieve those figures]. You would think the minister would have thought, that’s crazy. But he didn’t.”
Attending an announcement on energy policy with the prime minister, Taylor again faced questions on the altered document and whether he has apologised to Moore as he said he would on Friday.
“I have made a statement and I have said in that statement that I will send her a letter,” Taylor said.
“I don’t have anything more to add to that today. We’ll be sending the letter this week.”
How the numbers came to have been altered has been a matter of furious speculation and questions in parliament. Taylor has admitted the figures were wrong but maintains his office did not forge the council document.
The opposition says it is potentially a criminal offence to use a forged document to influence a public official in their duties and has referred the matter to the New South Wales police.
The opposition has now submitted three freedom of information requests to Taylor, to his department and to the prime minister’s office asking for documents relating to the altered document as well as talking points that would likely have been produced in the aftermath, after the Guardian broke the story.
The requests could also reveal if the prime minister had any prior knowledge of the planned attack on Moore using the Telegraph.
The Guardian has also lodged an FOI request, while the Greens and the opposition have combined to require Taylor’s Department of the Environment and Energy to front a Senate estimates committee which will be reconvened in November.
Albanese said the latest scandal that has engulfed the energy minister showed he was distracted from the urgent task of reducing Australia’s emissions.
“This is a national energy minister without a national energy policy or framework, who’s distributing documents that he has conceded are fraudulent and not correct to the Daily Telegraph in order to attack a mayor,” he said.
“It’s about time the Morrison government got someone as energy minister who can do their day job,” he said.
“Quite clearly, minister Taylor isn’t interested in doing that, and how he explains his misleading of parliament last week is beyond my comprehension.
“There’s very serious consequences for that, and he needs to reconcile what he told parliament with what the facts are with regard to this document,” he said.
