A freedom of information request found no record that Chief Minister Andrew Barr ever wrote to the prime minister asking for cooperation with a Fluffy board of inquiry, but late last night Mr Barr's office said a letter had been discovered.
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A spokeswoman for the Fluffy Full Disclosure group, Felicity Prideaux, made a freedom of information request for all information relating to formal or informal, written or verbal, requests for support to establish an inquiry.
The response said despite extensive and thorough searches, no relevant documents had been found. Mr Barr had "personally raised the matter of financial support with the Premier of NSW and the Prime Minister", according to the response to Ms Prideaux.
The bureaucracy appears to have no written record of that personal approach.
But a spokesman for Mr Barr said last night the response to Ms Prideaux's freedom of information request looked to have been an administrative error. Mr Barr had raised the matter with Mr Turnbull verbally and followed up with a letter, which had covered a range of topics including asbestos. He was now taking advice on whether it could be released.
As justification for not holding a full inquiry into the Fluffy issue, Mr Barr has repeatedly claimed it cannot be done without Commonwealth support – because of the expense and the need to access old federal documents – and he says Commonwealth support has not been forthcoming.
Mr Barr told the ACT parliament in March an inquiry could only achieve its goals with the close co-operation of the Commonwealth and preferably the NSW government.
"The Commonwealth ... has not provided any assurance it will financially support and co-operate with any review process," he said.
In October, Mr Barr agreed to go to the federal and NSW governments "to seek views ... on the form of an inquiry into the legacy of Mr Fluffy and to seek support for the cost of an inquiry".
His hand was forced by Liberal leader Jeremy Hanson, who put a motion in the Assembly calling for a royal commission-style board of inquiry into the affair. The Greens' Shane Rattenbury, who holds the casting vote, helped Labor defeat Mr Hanson's call, in return for Mr Barr agreeing to push the issue nationally.
The precise content of Mr Barr's conversation with Mr Turnbull remains undisclosed. In March, Mr Barr said he had raised the issue with Mr Turnbull and NSW Premier Mike Baird and "neither have indicated support". Asked to clarify, Mr Barr said he had asked for "financial support for a process that looks at the history of the issue", but it had "not been forthcoming".
Mr Turnbull's office has declined to provide details of any approach, saying only that a decision about a board of inquiry was one for the ACT government to make.
A second freedom of information request from Ms Prideaux for all briefings on the topic resulted in just three documents, including a budget estimates brief from 2015, which says a board of inquiry would probably run for up to two years and cost at least $10 million.
A board of inquiry is the ACT's equivalent to a royal commission, with the powers to subpoena witnesses, hear evidence under oath, access documents and use search warrants.
Mr Barr said in March if the ACT was to provide the full story, it must review the time before self-government when the asbestos insulation was being installed in Canberra houses. "Any examination simply must have access to Commonwealth documents, legal advice, commonwealth officials and the records of the Commonwealth executive," he said then.
"As many have observed correctly, given that we are a territory, there are real legal issues in this regard, but these could be overcome with the agreement of the commonwealth government to fully participate.
"The government has determined that it will not embark on a review without Commonwealth participation and assistance, including in defraying the obviously very substantial costs involved."
