Slugcatcher, however, is delighted to report that the troubles have answered a difficult question for Woodside boss, Don Voelte – what was he going to speak about at the annual conference of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association.

Until a few weeks ago, and as printed in the original version of the APPEA program, our Don was giving a talk at noon on Monday, April 11, titled “a key industry player’s perspective”.

How boring – though no more so than the other “fill-in” titles assigned to prospective speakers, probably so the organisers could produce a draft program.

Well, Slugcatcher is first with the news. Don’s topic has now been fine-tuned to: “Why Transparency is Good Business”.

The subject matter, if it lives up to its promise, should guarantee a full auditorium for Don simply because it sounds like an ideal time and place for a complete run down on what on earth has been happening in the Woodside/Lightfoot affair.

Naturally, Slugcatcher is expecting nothing of the sort simply because the whole event is so bizarre as to defy a simple explanation.

For anyone not living on Venus for the past few weeks, the Lightfoot matter involves claims of money being sent to Iraq, possibly sewn into the lining of clothes, and delivered to a Kurdish group in the north of that troubled country.

Lightfoot is alleged to have claimed he acted with Woodside’s knowledge. Woodside, in turn, has been appalled, and written to the Prime Minister, John Howard, and assorted other senior government leaders, complaining bitterly about its name getting dragged into a strange affair.

According to one recent media report, the start of complaints from Woodside goes back as far as last year when the oil company asked the good Senator to stop telling people that he was a representative of Woodside.

Details of who is alleged to have said what, to whom, are availably elsewhere and Slugcatcher has no intention of reproducing them – though they are highly-recommended reading for anyone who enjoys that literary category known as ‘truth is stranger than fiction”.

Whatever the outcome of the Woodside/Lightfoot/Iraq/Cash affair it does give Don a natural entrée to that theme of transparency – and Slugcatcher wishes him every success in covering the subject with a straight face.

Given Don's chosen topic of transparency, Slugcatcher has a suggestion to make which might liven up what looks to have become a somewhat dull morning.

Rather than simply a talk on transparency, why doesn’t the APPEA committee ask Don to set his talk to music, and perhaps even a little song and dance along the lines of that wonderful number from the musical Chicago – you know the one about Mr Cellophane.

It includes these marvellous lines:

“Mister Cellophane, should have been my name,

“Mister Cellophane, cause you can look right through me

“Walk right by me, and never know I’m there”

Now, that’s transparency at its finest – and highly recommended as a number for Don as he shuffles onto the APPEA stage.