The embattled emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, says he has established “an administrative point of contact” with the New South Wales police, but has declined to say whether he has handed over relevant metadata and download logs to Strike Force Garrad.

Taylor told parliament on Wednesday he had not yet been interviewed by detectives investigating a doctored City of Sydney council document but on Wednesday reported his office had established an administrative point of contact with the NSW police.

“I will always cooperate with matters of this sort,” the minister said. Taylor said he did not intend to make any further comment “while police inquiries are continuing”.

The City of Sydney council has confirmed the lord mayor, Clover Moore, has been asked to provide a statement. A council spokesman said: “She will cooperate with the police request. We have nothing further to add at this time.”

The government declined on Wednesday to comply with a Senate order to produce evidence that the document with the inflated travel figures was downloaded from the council website. Taylor also declined to provide that evidence to the House on Wednesday.

The minister said he had tabled a statement in the House of Representatives last week, and he categorically rejected Labor’s “smear”.

“I reject absolutely the scurrilous accusations of those opposite,” Taylor said.

Taylor has denied consistently and categorically that either he, or anyone in his office, altered the City of Sydney document to inflate travel expenditure as a means of attacking Moore. Taylor has said the document with the incorrect numbers was obtained from the council website.

But the council has produced evidence showing that its publicly available annual reports has only ever contained accurate figures. Metadata and screenshots from the council’s content management system showed the annual reports on its website had not been changed since they were uploaded with the accurate figures 11 months ago.

The differing accounts prompted Labor to refer the matter to NSW police, asking for an investigation into whether a forgery had been created to influence the mayor in her public duties.

The Australian on Wednesday named one of Taylor’s staff, Josh Manuatu, a former Young Liberal president, as the person who allegedly obtained false travel figures about Clover Moore and sent them to the Daily Telegraph.

Guardian Australia has no evidence that Manuatu was involved in the incident in question, but there has been talk around the government that he might have been the staffer who handled the material.

The letter that went to Moore on 30 September went out under the minister’s signature, and Taylor has already issued an unreserved apology to the lord mayor.

“It is now clear to me that the correspondence I sent you on 29 September 2019 included numbers that were not correct,” Taylor wrote to Moore. “Given this, I regret not clarifying those figures with you before writing, and relying on those figures in media commentary, I apologise unreservedly.”

Manuatu remains on Taylor’s staff. In response to the naming of the staffer, Taylor’s office repeated what the minister has said consistently. “I reject absolutely the suggestion that I, or any members of my staff, altered the document in question.”

In the Senate on Wednesday night, the Labor frontbencher Murray Watt pointed to the news report in the Australian. He declared Taylor needed to take responsibility, and not “blame [his] staff”.

“It is time to show a shred of dignity, do the right thing and resign,” Watt said. “If he won’t, the prime minister must finally show an ounce of leadership and sack this disgraced minister.”