Handballing Power
Tax, tax and more tax was the subject on everyone’s lips at this week’s Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association conference in Brisbane.
So it was up to WA-based Clough to provide a point of difference with a little light-hearted touch at its stand at the convention.
Clough provided amusement for all, it seems, with an Australian Rules handballing competition that required the delivery of the footy via the fist through a hole next to a cut out of Brisbane AFL player Luke Power.
The engineering firm offered a football prize to anyone who was accurate.
Our intrepid on-the-spot reporter told The Note that the results proved there were plenty of oil and gas executives who clearly had not been raised on the Australian game.
But it wasn’t all footy at APPEA.
APPEA’s Perth-based chairman, Buru Energy chief Eric Streitberg, apparently won big applause when he lashed out at inventors of the federal government’s resources super profits tax, calling them pointy headed bean counters.
Of course, there are none of them in the petroleum sector.
With tax such a heated subject, points have to go to Minister for Resources and Energy Martin Ferguson for showing his face in Queensland for the convention.
We are reliably informed that he suggested to the industry that his years in politics had taught him not to get painted into a corner. Oddly enough, The Note thought that’s exactly what the feds have done?
Nevertheless, Mr Ferguson braved the convention crowd to visit various booths in what could have been a hostile crowd. We can’t confirm or deny that he failed to visit the BHP stand.