MEDIA RELEASE

KEVIN RUDD M.P.

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and   International Security

15 December 2004

What game has Mr Downer been playing over the  director generalship of the IAEA?

One of the minor puzzles in Canberra politics over the past 72 hours has been to  try and figure out what game Mr Downer has been playing over the director  generalship of the IAEA.

Monday's newspapers contained stories about Mr Downer's possible candidature  to remove or replace the current Director General of the IAEA, Mr El Baradei.

Instead of an immediate rejection of these reports, we were treated to the very  cute spectacle of Mr Downer and his office remaining silent for 48-hours -  deliberately allowing public speculation to develop on this matter.

It was not until today that the shy and retiring Mr Downer finally surfaced for  comment to tell the country that he will be staying put.

What on earth has all this been about?

It appears Mr Downer has deliberately fanned the IAEA speculation over the last  couple of days to promote his own internal political stocks within the Liberal  Party - and doing so in the lead up to his career milestone next week.



However while Mr Downer has been engaged in this none-too-subtle exercise in  political self-promotion for a position in which he was never a starter, the  resultant collateral damage which has resulted has been to the international

standing of Mr El Baradei. Neither Mr Downer nor Mr Howard have answered the  challenge as to what precisely Mr El Baradei has done wrong in order to be  removed from his office in the first place - or to promote international  speculation to that effect.

All this leaves to one side the ultimate irony of Mr Downer possibly replacing Mr  El Baradei - when Mr Downer rejected any scepticism about stockpiles of Iraqi  WMD while Mr El Baradei and Hans Blix demonstrated continuing scepticism in  the lead up to the Iraq war.





Media contact: Alister Jordan  0417 605 823









