I don't think Beautiful soup is up to cracking oo3's xml format; it doesn't respect nesting.

export_notes.py

@@ -1,2 +1,25 @@
 #!/usr/bin/python
+import gzip
+from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulStoneSoup
+import sys
 
+
+
+def __main(oo_file):
+    g = open(oo_file)
+    o = open('output.xml', 'w')
+    try:
+        soup = BeautifulStoneSoup(g)
+        count = 0
+        for item in soup.outline.root:
+            if item.parent != soup.outline.root:
+                continue
+            count = count + 1
+        print count
+    finally:
+        g.close()
+        o.close()
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    __main(sys.argv[1])