Where the story truly exploded in the public domain though was a little over a fortnight ago, and therein lies a tale. At 5.30 pm on April 10 one of the twitterati by the name of “Ronni Salt” – not her true name – posted a Twitter thread containing extraordinary documentation on the whole deal. All hell broke loose. The original post immediately went viral and journalists who re-tweeted it were served with very strong legal letters by Taylor’s lawyers. Later that night, the tweet disappeared, as did “Ronni Salt” from the Twittersphere. Stories circulated that she had been banned from Twitter, and even legally shut down. Loading But who is this “Ronni Salt” and how did she come by the story? It is a strange tale. Fearing the legal forces she claims will crush her if she is identified, she chooses to remain anonymous, but I have tracked her down to hear her tale. So how did she come to get those documents? Well, by her account, as someone who has a background in this complex field, she had a “Deep Throat”, someone she has still never met, but who – from deep within the deal done – contacted her on social media in mid-March, and after earning her trust started sending her digital copies of the extraordinarily sensitive documents. When they spoke on the phone, it was via a particular system called “Signal”, whereby the call could never be traced, going via a server in Switzerland, and in fact she says even Deep Throat’s voice was disguised.

Late on the night of releasing it all on Twitter, knowing it was out there and copies would have been made, and that powerful forces wanted her shut down, she deleted the thread and deactivated her own account. She only re-emerged late last week, but says she will never identify herself publicly, nor her Deep Throat – not even to me. She believes Taylor to be extremely sensitive to his connection to the Cayman Islands, noting how in 2013, a mere letter to the editor to the Goulburn Post that asserted among other things that “Angus Taylor had an investment company registered in the Cayman Islands” was met with such a strong Taylor reaction that the paper followed up a couple of days later with a formal apology saying the letter about his “personal financial affairs” was incorrect, and should not have been run. Taylor has always maintained he had no financial interest in EAA or EAI. Salt also asserts – and has sent me screen shots – showing that Taylor’s wife Louise Clegg has been discussed on Wikipedia forums for trying to change her husband’s entry on his Wikipedia entry. She also sent screen shots showing that someone, not Clegg, did succeed in removing a reference to Eastern Australia Agriculture, just weeks before the $79 million transaction went through. When The Project asked Taylor last week if he was still a part of EAI, he responded with a very terse “No”, and declined to say why it was set up in the Cayman Islands. Energy Minister Angus Taylor. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Whatever else, it really is beyond doubt that Taylor regards his own involvement in the whole affair as very sensitive. In 2016 when Aoife Champion, the ALP candidate standing against him in Hume for both that year’s election and this one, referenced at an event Taylor’s involvement with Cayman Islands-registered EAI and water licences, she received a strong phone call the next day from a Taylor staff member who threatened defamation action if it was not removed from the video hosted on the event’s Facebook page. I repeat: this is a very strange tale, a complicated saga. And it needs, urgently, more light. A large part of the complication is Taylor declining to give a full and frank account of the whole thing. This is a serious matter, of great public importance. As Michael West so eloquently put it, “Australia’s water buybacks scheme was designed to help drought-stricken farmers and our vital ecosystems, not to deliver a large profit for investors in a Caribbean tax haven.”

It is not unreasonable for we, the people, to seek full answers on how it came to this. Joke of the Week A couple of elderly men were venting their frustrations about the woes of modern technology.

"I just can't ever seem to remember my darn passwords," grumbled one of them.

The other one smiled. "Oh really? I can never forget mine!"

"How do you manage it?" asked the first guy curiously."Well, I simply set all my passwords to 'Incorrect' so that whenever I'm told that my password is incorrect, I'll remember it!" Quotes of the Week “Australia’s water buybacks scheme was designed to help drought-stricken farmers and our vital ecosystems, not to deliver a large profit for investors in a Caribbean tax haven.” - Michael West, business journalist.

“New Zealanders oppose terrorism and extreme violence in all its forms. In the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks, it was the condemnation of the perpetrators of violence and a message of peace that unified us all.” - A spokesman for Jacinda Ardern about the Sri Lankan killings. “You’re not asking about what clothes they wear, you’re not asking who they’re married to - you’re asking if they have water to sell.” - Barnaby Joyce, weeping and wailing and rending his clothes to vehemently deny any wrongdoing in a decision – while he was minister for water and agriculture – to buy $79 million worth of water from a company domiciled in the Cayman Islands that was co-founded by Angus Taylor, who is now himself a federal government minister. “There's a chaos around what Barnaby does normally, but this one is off the scale.” - Labor's shadow water minister Tony Burke about Barnaby Joyce's water buyback. "Many people, even today, think we should be confined to our homes, restrict ourselves only to household work. That is just wrong." - Nima Doma, a 35-year-old Sherpa widow. Widows in South Asia are generally expected to mourn until the end of their lives, renouncing colourful clothes, jewellery, rich and spicy food, and even festivals as they are deemed inauspicious, say women's rights experts. Nima and fellow widow Furdiki Sherpa are planning to climb Mt Everest next month to show people that widows can still be a part of life. “The government assumes there's a 'do nothing' option.” - Mark Butler, shadow climate change minister about the government’s attitude to climate change.