[LINK] [OT] Downer on Uranium

[George Bray]

Deja-vu all over again,
  geo


Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1610589.htm
Broadcast: 06/04/2006

Clarke and Dawe on the sale of uranium

(John Clarke plays Alexander Downer and Bryan Dawe plays the interviewer)

INTERVIEWER: Mr Downer, thanks for your time.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: It's a great pleasure to be here, Bryan, and good evening.

INTERVIEWER: Congratulations on the sale of uranium to China.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Thank you. This is a moment of enormous economic
significance to all Australians. It's great to be part of that great
Chinese powerhouse.

INTERVIEWER: It must be very complicated, the international uranium market?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yes, well spotted. It's a market of great complexity, Bryan...

INTERVIEWER: So you understand it?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: ..particularly in its diplomatic aspects, in this case.

INTERVIEWER: You do understand it?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: The international uranium trade?

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yes, we couldn't have done this if we didn't have an
intimate understanding of the international uranium trade.

INTERVIEWER: So the Australian Government must be very good at this if
it knows so much about it?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: I think we can take some pride. We understand, I
think, the international uranium market as well as any other country
on earth, yes.

INTERVIEWER: Yet you don't understand the international wheat trade,
do you, Mr Downer?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Bryan, we do understand intimately the international
wheat trade in terms of its scope and nature.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, but nobody told you exactly how it all happens?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: That's right, that's been the difficulty there.

INTERVIEWER: You weren't told things?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Nobody told us, no, nobody told my department. We
didn't know anything about what was going on.

INTERVIEWER: So, Mr Downer, what haven't you been told about the
uranium business?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: What haven't I been told about it?

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: I don't know that yet.

INTERVIEWER: Well, when will you know what you haven't been told?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: I won't know that for a fair bit, in my view.

INTERVIEWER: OK, Mr Downer, what for example, is a peaceful purpose?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: A peaceful purpose, Bryan - as its name suggests -
is simply a purpose, an aim, which is not bellicose.

INTERVIEWER: It's a long way away?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: No, no, no, no. I mean it's not war-like, Bryan.
It's an aim which is not war-like. The essential point is the uranium
can't be used in weapons.

INTERVIEWER: Because that's what the uranium we're selling to China is
going to be used for, isn't it, peaceful purposes?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Peaceful purposes - it said that on the docket. I
made that very clear to them, Bryan. Written on the top of the docket,
"Peaceful purposes".

INTERVIEWER: Right, good. And can peaceful purposes be imposed on
another nation, Mr Downer?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: No, that can't be the case. That would be logically
impossible. That's a contradiction in terms. You can't impose peaceful
purposes on another nation.

INTERVIEWER: Right. Isn't that what's happening in Iraq?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: No, Bryan.

INTERVIEWER: Well, it is.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: The products we're exporting to Iraq are freedom and
democracy.

INTERVIEWER: So you can impose freedom and democracy on other countries?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: I think scientific tests would currently indicate
you can't, Bryan.

INTERVIEWER: I thought it was mission accomplished two years ago, Mr Downer?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: I think we've had to review our concept of what
Iraqis are. It turns out there are three completely separate ethnic
groups living in an area we called Iraq.

INTERVIEWER: Nobody told you about that?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Nobody told my office, Bryan. We've had no phone
calls, no notification, no faxes.

INTERVIEWER: Are we going to be selling uranium to India?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, I don't know that yet, Bryan.

INTERVIEWER: Haven't been informed, of course.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Nobody said a dickie bird. I haven't seen the PM
since Saturday.

INTERVIEWER: Mr Downer, thanks for your time.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Always a pleasure, Bryan.

INTERVIEWER: Likewise.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Helen Coonan, please. Yes, Alexander, Helen. How are
you? Listen, this big clean-up you're doing at the ABC - I've got a
name for you. Bryan Dawe.