A Federal Court judge will decide within weeks on whether to grant the Australian Federal Police access to a cache of phone records as investigators probe the copying of former speaker Peter Slipper's diary.
The material, which was previously tendered in a civil case, includes text and picture messages between Mr Slipper's former staffer James Ashby and former coalition MP Mal Brough.
The AFP wants to comb the phone records to determine whether there's enough evidence to press criminal charges against Mr Brough over his alleged role in the affair.
Permission is needed to use evidence from a civil case in criminal prosecution.
In an application to the Federal Court on Thursday, Commonwealth barrister Andrew Berger said the AFP didn't yet have enough evidence to prosecute Mr Brough and bring the investigation to a head.
He said harvesting the phone records could reveal whether information that should not have been passed on had been, and if any criminal offence had been committed.
"There is, in broad terms, some smoke there and they (the AFP) wish to seek access to the information to see if there may be some fire," Mr Berger said.
"The AFP think there may be more information on the phone that may be relevant."
The AFP is seeking two CDs containing forensic downloads from Mr Ashby's mobile phone, which could be used as potential evidence.
The court heard Mr Ashby and Mr Slipper consented to the AFP's application, but that the texts from 2012 were no longer on Mr Ashby's mobile phone, and Mr Brough had since got a new phone.
Mr Ashby launched a sexual harassment suit against his boss in 2012.
During that case, it emerged that Mr Ashby made copies of Mr Slipper's diary, which were sent to Mr Brough and a News Limited journalist.
A subsequent series of newspaper stories about Mr Slipper's use of government-issued taxi vouchers led to him losing his seat of Fisher to Mr Brough at the 2013 election.
Mr Ashby's harassment case was ultimately rejected by a Federal Court judge, who said the staffer had been part of a "combination", including Mr Brough, using court action to pursue a political attack.
Mr Ashby appealed and the original judgment was set aside, but he later dropped the case. Mr Brough stood aside from the front bench in December and in February decided not to recontest his seat.
The AFP is now investigating whether Mr Brough "counselled and procured" Mr Ashby to disclose extracts from Mr Slipper's diary and provide those extracts to third parties without authority.
During a Senate Estimates hearing last week, AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin said the majority of the investigation was now complete.
"However, there are still a couple of significant avenues of inquiry that we are following," he said, one of which was the Federal Court application.
Justice Geoffrey Flick is expected to hand down his decision within three weeks.
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