Politics

The Angus Taylor-Clover Moore Stoush Has Escalated To A Full Federal Investigation

The AFP have been called in to investigate the actions of Energy Minister Angus Taylor, over a possibly fraudulent document.

by Hannah Story  2 January 2020
Angus Taylor

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NSW Police have passed their investigation into Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor over possible doctored Sydney Council reports on to the Australian Federal Police, as the ABC reports.

The City of Sydney Council declared a climate emergency back in June, which pissed off the Federal Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor, so hell-bent is he on doing sweet fuck-all about the escalating crisis.

Taylor wrote to Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore to accuse her of failing to rein in the Council’s own carbon emissions, as their 2017-18 annual report allegedly showed the Council had spend $1.7 million on international travel and $14.2 million on domestic travel. He then sent his open letter to The Daily Tele, who published the figures at the end of September.

Except, the publicly available annual report showed that the total cost of interstate travel by the Council was just $4206.32, with the overseas figure sitting at $1727.77. Taylor says his figures came from an edited page of the council’s report, which he initially claimed to have downloaded from the Council’s website.

But Council can prove that the documents have not been changed since they were first uploaded, and have data logs about who has visited their website to access the files.

Where Taylor’s inflated figures came from is now at the centre of the AFP’s investigation. The Minister denies any wrongdoing.

“Following an investigation by the State Crime Command’s Financial Crimes Squad, the matter has been referred to the Australian Federal Police,” a NSW Police spokesperson said.

The NSW Police investigation came at the behest of the Shadow Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, who repeatedly called on authorities to look into the matter.

The investigation, Strike Force Garrad, commenced in November last year, even as Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted that Taylor had not breached ministerial standards.

The AFP confirmed they had been referred the case on 20 December 2019 “in relation to the alleged doctoring of a document”.

A spokesperson for Taylor has told the Sydney Morning Herald that the Minister “welcomes” the conclusion of the NSW Police investigation.

“This supports his repeated previous statements that neither he, nor any member of his office, altered the document in question,” they said. “Of course Minister Taylor will cooperate with the AFP and any enquiries they wish to make, although he fully expects they will conclude that this matter is baseless.”

On Saturday, a day of catastrophic fire danger across southeast Australia, Taylor is scheduled to host a Liberal party fundraiser at the New Year’s Test in Sydney. Taylor is the member for Hume, where a Total Fire Ban is in place from Friday and the fire danger has been declared by the RFS as Very High. Great timing!