The Australian Federal Police says it doesn't have enough evidence to prosecute former Liberal minister Mal Brough for copying former speaker Peter Slipper's diary.
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In an application to the Federal Court on Thursday Andrew Berger, barrister for the AFP, said investigators wanted access to all text messages and phone calls between Mr Brough and Mr Slipper's former media advisor James Ashby.
"What [the AFP] can get so far isn't enough to bring the investigation to a head," Mr Berger said.
The AFP needs the court's permission to use evidence from a civil case in a criminal prosecution. In this case, the evidence includes hundreds of sometimes lewd text messages sent and received from Mr Ashby's phone in 2012 that were used in his case against Mr Slipper for sexual harassment.
Asked by Justice Geoffrey Flick why communications already in the public domain were not sufficient for the AFP to lay charges, Mr Berger said a report by a forensic expert used in Mr Ashby's case may not have captured everything, in particular, communications between Mr Ashby and Mr Brough.
During that case it emerged Mr Ashby had made copies of Mr Slipper's diary, which were then sent to Mr Brough and former News Corp journalist Steve Lewis, with the intention of using them to show Mr Slipper had misused his Government-issued Cabcharge vouchers.
"The AFP think there may be more information on the phone that may be relevant," Mr Berger said.
"It's a known unknown."
He said there could be information on the phones that "leads to the inference that information has been passed that should not have been passed ... and may indicate where an offence has potentially been committed," he said.
"There is in some broad terms some smoke and [the AFP] wish to see access to the information to see if there may be some fire."
In a Senate estimates hearing last week AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin said the "majority of the investigation has been completed".
"However, there are still a couple of significant avenues of inquiry that we are following ... we are coming to the conclusion of the investigation, but we cannot conclude just yet," he said.
Justice Flick was told Mr Ashby and Mr Slipper consent to the AFP's application. However, the text messages from 2012 are no longer on Mr Ashby's mobile phone and Mr Brough has since got a new phone.
Mr Brough, who lost the Queensland seat of Longman in 2007, re-entered Parliament by winning the LNP preselection and defeating Mr Slipper in the seat of Fisher in 2013.
Mr Brough stood down from his role of Special Minister of State - a job that oversees parliamentary standards and entitlements - in December. He is not contesting the upcoming federal election.
Mr Ashby's case against Mr Slipper was thrown out of court as an abuse of process before an appeal declared it should be heard. In June 2014 Mr Ashby dropped the suit less than a fortnight before the trial was to start after "deep reflection and consultation".
Justice Flick will hand down his decision within three weeks.
