Two men in particular stand out as leaders of this American-led revolution against heavy-handed Australian government, though you could hardly call either of them offensive in the usual meaning of the word.

The duo in question is Don Voelte and Bob Browning, chief executives respectively of oil and gas producer Woodside Petroleum, and gas distributor and retailer Alinta.

In separate acts of defiance, Voelte has effectively told Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter to take a running jump over a proposed 20% gas retention policy, and Browning has bored ahead with a highly controversial merger and acquisition strategy that has made him the pin-up boy (dartboard division) at the both the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Takeovers Panel.

The Slug will explore their frolics in more detail later, but it is worth noting that there are two other amigos from north of the border who are doing an equally sterling job in tweaking the nose of government, although not in the petroleum patch.

In the world of telecoms, Sol Trujillo and his trusty sidekick, Phil Burgess, have rubbed the Prime Minister John Howard the wrong way on repeated occasions over regulation and control of the company they run, Telstra.

To cut through all the verbiage around Telstra and government regulation, Sol and Phil have a clear-cut position: they don’t want any – at all!

This delightfully simple approach to life, where the laws of the jungle are also the laws of the day, where big eats small and the fittest survive, is American at its purest – which is not the same as saying American at its finest.

Voelte, for example, is adamant that a 20% gas retention policy to ensure adequate gas supplies for local industry at an affordable price, is abhorrent, and an affront to the rules of business.

Perhaps he’s right. But for as far back as The Slug can remember, it has always been understood although not set in concrete, that the provision of gas to local industry is part of the deal by which government allows access to the gas that is legally owned by an old lady who resides (depending on the season) in Windsor, Sandringham, Balmoral, or Buck House.

Perhaps Don, a lad from the wild west of Nebraska, is struggling with this fundamental concept of the Crown owning the minerals and petroleum that lie underground – and that the Crown is represented in this case by Alan’s Government.

Woodside, no matter how it sees things, doesn't own the owner of the asset. The Crown does.

A lifetime ago, when The Slug was a young lad like Don, this argument surfaced at the time Woodside was first proposing to develop its North West Shelf gas. Then Premier Charles Court insisted that the first stage was the building of a pipeline from the gas field to Perth.

Heavily criticised at the time, in fact roundly rubbished by critics from Alan’s side of politics, that pipeline had been the lifeline of industry in the south of WA. It is the single most important piece of infrastructure in WA – and it is rooted in a history that some foreigners just don’t get.

More words need to flow under the bridge for Don to understand just how deeply people in WA feel about preserving some (not all) of the state’s gas reserves. He might have a quarry mentality, where everything is for export to Japan, China, or the US, but people like Carpenter do not.

Accepting that government has a bigger role in life in Australia than in the US is just something that Don will have to learn to live with, or not.

Bob Browning is also heading for showdown of Trujillo and Voelte dimensions as he battles the Australian version of City Hall at the ACCC and the panel.

A remarkable, clever chap in the way he has turned a moribund government gas agency into a national energy powerhouse, Browning is currently in danger of biting off far more than he can chew.

His version of the Boston Tea Party is to try and orchestrate an incredibly complex merger (or is it a takeover) with Sydney-based Australian Gas Light which is, in turn, trying to forge ahead with a dead duck in the form of the PNG gas pipeline.

The Slug, who confesses to breaking out in hives and developing a deep-seated headache when trying to understand who will end up owning what should the Alinta/AGL marriage ever take place, reckons that Bob has infuriated one (or two) tiers of government too many.

Currently on Bob’s agenda is a ruling from the ACCC, which requires certain adjustments to the AGL deal, a ruling from the same government agency that it’s not happy with Alinta buying a large chunk of the Australian Pipeline Trust, and a ruling from the Takeovers Panel that Alinta’s dealing in APT shares has been unacceptable.

Talk about a trifecta of government trouble – and all while trying to juggle the terms of the merger from hell with AGL.

Running through all this cloud of complexity, are common threads which The Slug mentioned earlier – a deep-seated mistrust of government that seems to be embedded in all Americans.

The role of government in daily life is possibly the greatest single difference between Australians and Americans, and while people from both countries have much in common, there is a more ingrained respect for government in Australia – nothing like that seen in Britain, but much more than that seen in the US.

The trouble for Woodside, Alinta and Telstra is that they are being run (currently) by Americans who have terrific technical skills, but zero appreciation of the history that has made Australia what it is, warts and all.

And, in the Australian spirit of understanding and a fair go, if you don’t like the way we are, tough!

Note: The views of Slugcatcher are not those of APPEA.