Opposition leader Anthony Albanese says Angus Taylor must “come clean” on where the document his office used to attack City of Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore came from after New South Wales police said it found no evidence that it ever existed on the council’s website.

Taylor has repeatedly insisted that the false document he used to wrongly attack Moore for her travel-related emissions was downloaded from the council’s own website.

The document Taylor relied upon was an altered version of the council’s annual report, purporting to show the lord mayor had spent more than $15m on travel. The figures in Taylor’s copy of the annual report were grossly inaccurate. The expenditure was actually about $6,000.

Taylor has said he downloaded the document from the council’s website in early September before providing it to the Daily Telegraph, which subsequently ran a piece attacking Moore’s travel expenditure and associated emissions.

But new evidence from NSW police says they could find no evidence it had ever existed on the council’s website in the form used by Taylor.

In an interview with ABC radio on Tuesday, Albanese said Taylor must reveal where his office got the documents.

“He should just say where it came from. This is, quite frankly, absurd that this has gone on for so long,” he said.

“And if he won’t do it, the prime minister must make him come clean to parliament. Lying to parliament is a very serious offence. And we can’t have a circumstance whereby it is just swept away like it didn’t happen.

“You can’t have a circumstance whereby a minister simply is allowed to deliberately mislead parliament on multiple occasions and still sit there in the cabinet.”

During NSW budget estimates, Labor MP Rose Jackson asked NSW police if it had found “any evidence that the document Mr Taylor or his office provided to journalists at the Daily Telegraph, the alleged forged document, that that document had ever existed on the City of Sydney’s website”.

NSW police, in recently-published answers to questions on notice, responded that it had not found any such evidence.

In further evidence first reported by Ten News, police said they had also asked to interview Taylor.

The interview did not occur, but police continued to deal with Taylor’s lawyers.

“All requests with relevant questions were forwarded to Minister Taylor’s solicitor, Mr Stuart Hetherington of Colin Biggers and Paisley Lawyers on numerous occasions,” NSW police said. “Mr Hetherington replied and answered questions posed on behalf of Minister Taylor. The Minister was not interviewed.”

The lawyers cooperated with requests to provide documentation, NSW police said.

Police also revealed they did not examine whether “Minister Taylor or any member of Minister Taylor’s office visited the URL of the documents on the City of Sydney website or shared them via email or some kind of electronic messaging service”.

NSW police eventually referred the investigation to the Australian federal police. The AFP did not proceed with a formal investigation.

In October, NSW police were asked to investigate the matter by federal Labor.

NSW police referred the matter to the Australian federal police in December. The AFP considered the matter but did not investigate because it “determined it is unlikely further investigation will result in obtaining sufficient evidence to substantiate a commonwealth offence”.

NSW police have also now revealed that none of the IP addresses for users who downloaded the annual report from the council’s website between 6 September and 9 September belonged to Taylor or his office.

“None of the IP addresses were situated in Minister Taylor’s office,” it said.

Last month, when the AFP said the case would not be reopened, Taylor said it was time to move on.

“We’ve had two independent police forces look at this … I’ve cooperated with them at each stage,” Taylor told the ABC. “They have both considered and closed this matter, and the AFP commissioner said today the matter is finalised, full stop.”

“I’m getting on with my job.”