| ISA |
In just under a fortnight Michael Cullen will present his seventh budget, one he says will be deliberately boring. National's Bill English says it'll be like a donut with no centre now that the unbundling of Telecom's local loop has been leaked, it was supposed to be the centrepiece of the budget, now Dr Cullen is with me now, perhaps you could start off Dr Cullen by explaining to us where the inquiry is at in terms of the leak. |
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| DR MICHAEL CULLEN – Minister of Finance |
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I'm not aware of that Lisa at the present time it's a matter for the Minister of State Services, now obviously we'll be looking to get the document back from Telecom and to talk to them about their conclusions around what's happened, the State Services will be wanting to talk to them around that. It looks like this might be something that’s resolved fairly quickly, then of course to get back on to the real issue which is the change of the telecommunications regime which is the real story. |
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| LISA |
Are you absolutely sure that this lead didn’t come out of your own office? |
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| MICHAEL |
I'm absolutely certain of that, and I think that could be the bottom of anybody's list to have made that leak, this was after all going to be the bit of the surprise package within the budget so I've absolutely no interest in this being leaked. |
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| LISA |
Can you be sure it didn’t originate from anyone else in your office though? |
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| MICHAEL |
Ohh absolutely my staff are very loyal we've never had any problems in that respect. |
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| LISA |
Alright well if this leak has come from an office of one of your colleagues to what extent does that minister have to take responsibility for that? |
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| MICHAEL |
Oh only if there's been a system failure which the minister can be seen as responsible for, if it were the case it was within the minister's office then that person is the person responsible not the minister themselves that would be taking ministerial responsibility far too far. |
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| LISA |
So if there were some irresponsibilities an offence that one would have to resign for? |
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| MICHAEL |
Well I would expect anybody who was responsible to resign and this is a serious leak because of course it involved commercially sensitive matters and budget matters, but let's not get carried away it's not the leak which caused the loss in Telecom share value but whenever the announcement was made there was going to be a reaction and Telecom has made it far worse than it needed have been by the way they’ve talked as though any change to the regulatory regime was a disaster for the company, having kept saying that it's hard for them to turn around and tell the markets actually this isn't such a disaster for us after all. |
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| LISA |
Well the Telecom announcement has prompted some mumblings about government meddling and so the question needs to be asked I mean how much more government regulation can we expect in what areas and to what extent? |
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| MICHAEL |
Well there's always been a fairly high level of regulation telecommunications there is one of the problems that’s been, but when the government in the late 80s sold Telecom it hadn’t got the regulatory regime right at that particular point in time, and I think it's also fair to say as Brian Fallow was indicating that obviously the government is doing some serious thinking around the issue of the electricity market and I still have grave doubts about the capability of the current framework of this market to deliver the kind of certainty we need and also the kind of emphasis upon renewable generation that we need given other factors such as the Kyoto Agreement. |
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| LISA |
So what can we expect in the field of electricity then? |
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| MICHAEL |
Well just a lot of thinking and talking going on and obviously some of that quite quickly because there are decisions being made within the next few weeks which are quite crucial within this context. David Parker's got the intellectual capacity and far from the Attorney General's job being the plum job in fact Brian's quite right energy and climate change are far more important to the intellectual grunt required in the time required to deal with those issues and David brings that intellectual grunt to that particular job. The Attorney General's job is not one that takes an enormous amount of time. |
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| LISA |
What about Dr Cullen regulation in other areas, water allocation, transport infrastructure? |
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| MICHAEL |
Well we put out a discussion document on water and obviously there's a great deal of work to be done around that and particularly in terms of issues around transferable rights etc we need to get on with that work because it's a particularly important issue especially in the areas such as Canterbury. In Transport it's not the regulatory framework which is the issue, the issue always comes back at the end of the day to where’s the money gonna come from, how are we gonna raise the capital required to invest in Transport, what's the balance between the roading and public transport, how do we get better energy efficiency in transport usage and so on. Those aren’t particularly regulatory issues in the same way that in Telecommunications and Energy the regulatory frameworks are very very central to what happens. |
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| LISA |
Hard questions to answer, now hasn’t this whole Telecom saga though shown us just how thin the New Zealand stock exchange is, we've just seen the delisting of Carter Holt Harvey how worried are you that there seems to be fewer and fewer opportunities for New Zealanders to invest in their own country? |
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| MICHAEL |
There is concern about that quite obviously, we have seen a bit of reverse impact two three years ago with a bit of increased listings going on in the New Zealand share market, we're now seeing the reverse of that, that is a worry because it's an aspect of thinner capital markets to the extent that we're able to lift our savings rates with things such as the Kiwi Saver programme that may help over the medium to longer term but it also comes back to that structure the New Zealand economy with very few larger firms who perhaps want to list, a lot of small firms who prefer to remain private and prefer not to deal with the compliance costs and so on which are inevitably associated with being a listed company on the sharemarket. |
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| LISA |
Let's take a look at our current economic outlook, fluctuations in the New Zealand dollar, you predicted a trough of around 1.6% in growth, we're spending potentially an extra one and a half billion a year because of the petrol rises, you yourself said this week that the current situation is a delicate one, those were your exact words, so where do you stand on your earlier predictions of a soft landing in all of this, are we really heading for a rough ride? |
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| MICHAEL |
No we're not, I think we're still heading very much for a soft landing and the first quarter data that’s come through for the current calendar year in fact if anything has been a little bit stronger than anticipated, so we are anticipating a very flat rate of growth during this coming year 2006 out to March 2007 and then starting to pick up, but this is still a higher bottom to the economic cycle than we saw last time in 1998/99, there's nothing to be scared about the economic cycle is going to bottom out around one and half percent whatever the projections are gonna be within the budget, and we've had a top around 5% or so during the strongest period and very low on employment as a result of strong economic growth. So this is just a normal economic cycle and the last thing the government should be doing is panicking in response to that, the budget is much more structured around the long term issues which of course the changes to the telecommunications regime was going to be the most important. |
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| LISA |
You mentioned long term economics, then what is your long term economic vision for this country? |
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| MICHAEL |
New Zealand is a country which has got to get used to the idea of permanent change and adaptation around flexible responses to international markets particularly because (a) we're the most isolated developed country in the world and (b) of course we are particularly dependent upon small and medium size enterprises. I think what we're learning more and more is there is still a role for government not just in terms of building roads etc and the regulatory regime but working more effectively with business but to support things like productivity change, things like export development. The announcements I made a few weeks ago around changes to the funding system in tertiary education are a key driver of seeking greater quality and relevance so we're producing the kinds of skills that this economy needs to succeed over the long term, but it's very important that the people as a whole are part of that, there are really two competing visions here, one which is a sort of crash deal or crash series of economic changes where most people suffer a lot of pain a few get some gain and changes which are designed to take people with you so that we're used to the idea that continual adaptation, continual flexibility is what we have to achieve as a country, and coming back to what Bill English said if the budget's gonna be a donut without a middle then that’s the kind of donut I've always seen in the shops actually I can't quite see what the problem is. |
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| LISA |
You mentioned the budget there Dr Cullen, tell us what's going to fill that hole in the donut if the Broad Band thing has already been announced? |
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| MICHAEL |
Well I've just said donuts often have holes in the middle, they're still very nice donuts so what's the problem around that, this budget is about first of all obviously implementing the things that we promised during the election campaign, some of which are already in place, we've now gotta pay for those, secondly it's about the long term programme for economic transformation, for supporting families young and old and for the development of our national identity, it's not a series of ad hoc short term fixes or a panic reaction to the fact we've got a normal economic cycle here. I've always tried to set my budgets in the long term and this budget is again a long term budget, Kiwi Saver, New Zealand Super, and all these other longer term things, not short term patch ups. |
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| LISA |
What's the sweetener going to be though Dr Cullen, what can we expect in terms of say corporate tax, are we gonna hear anything about that? |
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| MICHAEL |
Of course you're not, of course you're not, I mean we went through this nonsense last year, let me speak again on this quite clearly so there's no misunderstanding. There are no changes to tax rates in this budget, but last year's budget there were big corporate changes in terms of business tax, I've just recently been in a meeting where senior business people said to me oh we've finally realised that we're getting some significant tax breaks around depreciation starting the 1st of April this year, and I was sort of – had to kind of control myself and say yes that’s right, that’s was actually one of the two key things in last year's budget but people persuaded you there were supposed to be tax rate changes in there and I never indicated that. Peter Dunne and I are working on a discussion document around the business taxation area, that'll come out later this year, that'll be for implementation 1 April 2008, I don’t do big fiscal surprises. |
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| LISA |
So what's in your political future then, is there at least two more budgets for you after this one? |
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| MICHAEL |
Oh I think there are plenty more budgets in me that’s for sure, I'm still enjoying this job and the other jobs I'm doing at the present time, as I've said many times at this stage I intend to stand at the next election, but I'll make a final decision on that a little bit closer and I'll be nearly 64 at the next election but you know as long as they still love me when I'm 64 I'll still be there. |
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| LISA |
So specifically when do you think you might retire? |
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| MICAHEL |
Specifically probably at an election some point in the future, but I'm intending to run at the next one. |
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| LISA |
We're speaking with Finance Minister Dr Cullen and we're going to throw the floor open to our panel, starting first off with Brian Fallow from the New Zealand Herald. |
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| BRIAN FALLOW – Economics Editor, NZ Herald |
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Dr Cullen you say we shouldn’t expect any panic reaction to a normal cyclical downturn but you’ve made a big thing in the past years when the economy was going strong of not adding extra fuel to that fire and you’ve been banking surpluses, can we now expect the other side of that cyclical approach and some sort of stimulatory budget for you? |
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| MICHAEL |
Brian what I've argued in the past is that fundamentally we try to operate fiscal policy through the cycle without getting too much into the jargon and leaving the viewers behind, that and the automatic stabilisers work, so we run big surpluses when the economy's running very strongly we bank those, I mean we even had strong cash surpluses and that will continue in the current year coming to an end in part because of a very strong performance by the Crown Finance institutions. We will move now into a period of cash deficits and lower operating surpluses so the government in effect is providing some stimulus to the economy, we're not doing that by deliberately pumping a lot of additional spending into the economy but really by allowing those automatic stabilisers to work on the bottom side of the cycle. |
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| DEBORAH HILL CONE – Columnist |
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Dr Cullen I thought you breezed over the loss of value to Telecom when you said that you expected there'd be a reaction whenever it got announced, and I just wanted to ask you how worried are you about the fact that our stock exchange is dwindling away to anorexic proportions and I've been talking to business people and they are all worried that we're becoming a branch office of Australia, and I wanted to pull you up on what you admitted that for a lot of smaller and medium sized companies the compliance costs of listing are a disincentive, and so I'm just wondering haven’t you made it worse with all of these extra regulations like the Securities Commission the Commerce Commission are all coming down hard on businesses? |
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| MICHAEL |
Goodness me, I'm not sure I can remember all those questions. On the telecommunications side the issue here is I think some of the media have talked themselves into believing the value loss is because the leak occurred, and the value loss is around the actual policy itself not the timing of the policy announcement, but it makes it better to have a headline saying billion dollar leak but then some reaction would have occurred at budget time as well, Telecom have made it much worse by themselves crying wolf all the way through the last few years saying unless unless unless they have their monopoly maintained they're going to be in trouble. Are we concerned about the loss of listings on the stock exchange as I said before, yes, very hard for government to do a great deal about that, on the other hand also note the stock exchange has had a really strong run over the last year or two after being stuck in the doldrums for a very very long period of time, so there are two sides to it. Come back to compliance costs, remind yourself again this is a comparative issue, we keep scoring right near the top and ………….in terms of ease of doing business on a range of measures, we keep addressing how we can reduce compliance costs for example I was at a Napier forum a couple of weeks back, spokesperson of the small business said please please government could you allow us to align our provisional tax payments with GST and make the payments every two months, the only thing that palled me about that was it was part of last year's budget announcements, we actually legislated for that a few weeks ago, comes into force next year, so we continue trying to address those issues, the balance between living in a modern democratic society where people don’t get killed in large numbers at work etc etc and trying to keep compliance costs down so business can get on with their job, and that’s gonna be a continuous trade off in a series of arguments which won't go away, there's no magic wand to get rid of compliance costs and you'll have clean water and you'll have safe work places and you'll have people treated properly at work and you won't have cowboy investments occurring and so on and so forth, always a series of trade offs. |
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| DEBORAH |
Yet I hear from people and I wondered whether you’ve heard this that there's a sense that people feel the pendulum has actually swung too far into the government can't do anything to make people list on the stock exchange but it can make it easier for them. |
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| MICHAEL |
Well a lot of those rules of course are set by the stock exchange themselves as a coregulatory model, but don’t forget that when we became the government in 1999 the concern was around the cowboy arrangements that our securities markets were seen as having, and having a poor reputation offshore, we of course moved on that and we have to keep those things always under advice to make sure we haven’t gone too far, but goodness me compare ourselves with the United States with things like the Sebanes Oxley Act, we managed to hold our nerve around that time and not get into some of the heavy handed regulation that some other countries did. |
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| BRIAN |
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I just wanted to ask you about the budget itself, I mean there was no particular reason for the Telecom announcement to be part of the budget it's not something to do with the government's finances particularly, so you’ve gotta suspect it was there to provide a bit of bling for what is now going to be a pretty dull document, you’ve already – if the numbers you gave us sort of at the half time score stage in December are still anything to go by you'll be increasing government spending by about two and a half billion, you’ve already pre committed at least half of that, half a billion for health, the student loans thing, you’ve increased Working for Families package, that only leaves a fairly small amount to satisfy all your other cabinet colleagues, isn't it going to be another matter of little dribs and drabs and nothing remotely transformative? |
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| MICHAEL |
Ah no, I don’t think so, because transformation is a continuous long term process not some drastic series of actions, the last time we had a really really exciting budget was 1991 it was called the Mother of All Budgets with Ruth Richardson jumping up and down frightened the hell out of us, most of that budget fell apart over the succeeding three or four months and my budgets don’t fall apart, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is there and it'll hit ten billion dollars by the end of June, Kiwi Saver in place from 1 April next year, we have reduced debt as a proportion of GDP, we are in a better position for the long term than was any other developed country and that will be an increasing competitive advantage for us and I'm not going to throw it all away by a series of sort of self indulgent exercises in trying to fladulate the public and telling them it's good for them. |
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| DEBORAH |
On Transport I mean isn't it easier for you to do things like the Telecom stuff which is regulating, what about PPPs which were promised to solve our transport problems and we don’t see anything of that, it's harder. |
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| MICHAEL |
They were never promised to solve our transport problems they were seen as a possible solution, interesting thing is they’ve been legally possible now for some time, this is the government that made them legally possible, we haven’t had a single approach for a single project. Now we are looking at the way on which Tranzit organises it's contracting and that may make it somewhat easier, but the recent study within Treasury shows that it's a very fine balance as to whether there's any greater advantage in PPPs within the New Zealand context, because PPPs offshore in the UK have basically been the means of trying to engage in a lot of budgetary expenditure of budget, unfortunately your budgets are so transparent our accounting rules are so transparent that I can't do things off budget in that respect in any case, the government can borrow more cheaply than anybody else and so the advantage still probably lies with the government dealing with the issue and we are now spending twice as much on roading pretty much 90% more on roading than when we became the government, we've got ten times as much work underway in Auckland now than when we became the government, so it's not as though the issues aren’t being dealt with, they most certainly are. |
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| DEBORAH |
I still sit in traffic though, I still sit in traffic for an hour. |
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| MICHAEL |
And you probably will sit in traffic on occasions for some years to come, and sometimes in a big city like Auckland you will sit in traffic in any case on occasions, you do in Sydney, you do in London, you do in New York and God help us if you drive in Los Angeles and San Francisco your main worry is you don’t fall down a pot hole in the middle of the city, at least you don’t do that in Auckland. |
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| DEBORAH |
Yeah but driving in from the airport in Sydney is much quicker. |
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| AGENDA |
| Presented by LISA OWEN |
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| LISA |
In just under a fortnight Michael Cullen will present his seventh budget, one he says will be deliberately boring. National's Bill English says it'll be like a donut with no centre now that the unbundling of Telecom's local loop has been leaked, it was supposed to be the centrepiece of the budget, now Dr Cullen is with me now, perhaps you could start off Dr Cullen by explaining to us where the inquiry is at in terms of the leak. |
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| DR MICHAEL CULLEN – Minister of Finance |
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I'm not aware of that Lisa at the present time it's a matter for the Minister of State Services, now obviously we'll be looking to get the document back from Telecom and to talk to them about their conclusions around what's happened, the State Services will be wanting to talk to them around that. It looks like this might be something that’s resolved fairly quickly, then of course to get back on to the real issue which is the change of the telecommunications regime which is the real story. |
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| LISA |
Are you absolutely sure that this lead didn’t come out of your own office? |
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| MICHAEL |
I'm absolutely certain of that, and I think that could be the bottom of anybody's list to have made that leak, this was after all going to be the bit of the surprise package within the budget so I've absolutely no interest in this being leaked. |
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| LISA |
Can you be sure it didn’t originate from anyone else in your office though? |
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| MICHAEL |
Ohh absolutely my staff are very loyal we've never had any problems in that respect. |
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| LISA |
Alright well if this leak has come from an office of one of your colleagues to what extent does that minister have to take responsibility for that? |
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| MICHAEL |
Oh only if there's been a system failure which the minister can be seen as responsible for, if it were the case it was within the minister's office then that person is the person responsible not the minister themselves that would be taking ministerial responsibility far too far. |
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| LISA |
So if there were some irresponsibilities in a sense that one would have to resign for? |
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| MICHAEL |
Well I would expect anybody who was responsible to resign and this is a serious leak because of course it involved commercially sensitive matters and budget matters, but let's look at ………it's not the leak which caused the loss in Telecom share value but whenever the announcement was made there was going to be a reaction and Telecom has made it far worse than it needed have been by the way they’ve talked as though any change to the regulatory regime was a disaster for the company, having kept saying that it's hard for them to turn around and tell the markets actually this isn't such a disaster for us after all. |
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| LISA |
Well the Telecom announcement has prompted some mumblings about government meddling and so the question needs to be asked I mean how much more government regulation can we expect in what areas and to what extent? |
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| MICHAEL |
Well there's always been a fairly high level of regulation telecommunications there is one of the problems that’s been, but when the government in the late 80s sold Telecom it hadn’t got the regulatory regime right at that particular point in time, and I think it's also fair to say as Brian Fallow was indicating that obviously the government is doing some serious thinking around the issue of the electricity market and I still have grave doubts about the capability of the current framework of this market to deliver the kind of certainty we need and also the kind of emphasis upon renewable generation that we need given other factors such as the Kyoto Agreement. |
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| MICHAEL |
Yes and they’ve don’t better in some areas in that respect, and we have a problem of course in the airport route, we have some of Auckland's most expensive suburbs sitting between the airport and the centre of Auckland, I can just see what would happen if we tried to drive a major motorway through the middle of Epsom. |
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| LISA |
Alright sadly we can't solve the entire transport problems of Auckland on the show this morning. Thank you very much to Dr Cullen. |
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Up next what is Iran up to and where do we fit in. |
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| LISA |
Earlier this week Britain France and the US introduced a UN Security Council resolution asking that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment programme, the west says that Iran is preparing to build a nuclear bomb, but Iran says it only wants the technology for peaceful purposes. The Iranian Ambassador to New Zealand Kambiz Sheikh-Hassani joins me now from Wellington. Good morning Mr Ambassador can you explain to us why Iran should be allowed to continue on with this development programme unchecked? |
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| KAMBIZ SHEIKH-HASSANI – Iranian Ambassador to NZ |
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Good morning Lisa, I think Iran as a member of NPT and according to the letter and the spirit of NPT is entitled to … |
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| LISA |
So the Non Proliferation Treaty you're talking about? |
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| AMBASSADOR Yes, is entitled to enjoy nuclear energy including enrichment and I think we are only asking for our rights to be recognised. |
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| LISA |
Why do you need this though, you're a country with significant energy resources, Russia has offered to do this research and work for you why do you need a programme? |
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| AMBASSADOR Well you know that Iran is a country with 70 million population, a developing nation with a growth rate over 6%, our energy needs have increased eightfold since 1979 and today we are importing four billion dollars of petrol each year just to satisfy the increased domestic consumption, we have to diversify our energy sources and nuclear energy is just one of the options. |
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| LISA |
But how can Iran be trusted to keep its word that this enrichment programme is just for energy, I mean we remember that Iran hid the fact that it was trying to enrich uranium for 18 years, how can you be trusted? |
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| AMBASSADOR First of all Iran was obstructed all the way through to reach its rights under the NPT because as a member of NPT we are entitled, so not only the number of states who have to help the other members to acquire nuclear technology did not help Iran but they obstructed our efforts, so we had to be discreet in order to reach our needs and we did so without the help of the west and we are determined to continue with our programme because we have to respond to the needs of Iranian people, Iranian growing economy. |
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| LISA |
Now the US has not ruled out military strikes if Iran refuses to comply with UN orders so for the sake of the region's stability why can't you just compromise? |
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| AMBASSADOR Well we have said all along the way through that within the charter of the NPT and IAE …Agreement, Iran is open to negotiation, any threat of military action is senseless and illegal and should be rejected utterly by the international community. |
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| LISA |
Well Iran on one hand says it wants to engage in a dialogue on the future of the Middle East and moving the Middle East forward but on the other hand your President has said very bluntly that Israel should be – and these are his words – wiped off the map. How can you reconcile those positions? |
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| AMBASSADOR Well I think if you look at the rhetoric used by President Bush and the US administration in the past two years Iran has been repeatedly threatened by military action, and unfortunately recently with nuclear strike and it is amazing that there is no hint of objection from the international community but one quotation from my President is taken out of context and unduly propaganda on it. |
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| LISA |
Clear it up for us now then what is the position in terms of Israel and stability and peace in the Middle East? |
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| AMBASSADOR Well we as a country living in the Middle East we know the region, we know that there will be no peace and stability in the Middle East unless the full rights of the Palestinian people are recognised, no full solution can bring that, there will be no sustainable peace and security in the region unless the full rights of the Palestinian people are recognised. |
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| LISA |
If we can turn our conversation to closer to home New Zealand exports about 80 million dollars worth of goods to your country each year, so how do you see perhaps that relationship, the relationship between the two countries strengthening? |
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| AMBASSADOR Well I think Iran and New Zealand has been enjoying 30 years of good friendly relationship, Iran New Zealand relationship is the oldest in that part of the world, we have been reliable partners, we are trying to diversify our cooperation with New Zealand. New Zealand government is taking an independent view of the world events and this creates a lot of respect around the world from New Zealand and I think there is a good potential for Iran and New Zealand to further expand their relationship. |
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| LISA |
Iran has to date ignored the warnings from the UN and basically this is the beginning of the possibility to go down the road for sanctions, I mean what would that mean for our relationship, our trade relationships? |
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| AMBASSADOR I think there is no room or base for Iran to be further sanctioned you know that we have been under extra territorial sanctions by the United States for the past 27 years, hampering Iranian people's effort for development, we see no benefit in enforcing or forcing further sanctions and I think the international community disagrees, it is not only Iran, because Russia, China, it is a non aligned movement countries, Islamic countries and many countries in Europe who oppose the approach the United States is taking and everybody is begging for negotiated settlement and I think that is the right way our path should be taking. |
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| LISA |
Alright well you touched on there the fact that you believe that New Zealand has independent views on world affairs, can you explain that a bit more what do you mean by that? |
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| AMBASSADOR Well I think you have shown over the time that you make your own decisions of an independent nation, I think your nuclear legislation is one of them, your opposition to the Iraqi invasion by the United States which was an illegal occupation was another manifestation, I think it is a respected principled foreign policy which is appreciated all around the world. |
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| LISA |
Mr Ambassador we're going to bring our panel in now and I turn first to Brian Fallow from the New Zealand Herald. |
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| BRIAN |
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Hullo Ambassador, I wonder if we could come back to the question of whether Iran really needs nuclear energy, I saw some figures this week that showed Iran blessed with vast resources, vast reserves of natural gas, I think one seventh of the global total of that fuel, and New Zealand's the country that’s running out of gas for electricity production, that technology is almost certainly cheaper than nuclear energy, why don’t you just burn the gas you have to meet your electricity requirements and avoid all these problems? |
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| AMBASSADOR Good morning Brian, I think the gas and oil are non renewable energy sources which should be best used, I think we can extract 200 different products from oil and gas and we have made enormous investment in the past eight years more than 20 billion dollars to turn Iran to one of the major producers of petrochemical products, this is first, second Iranian economy is dependent on oil, our production level today is 30% less than 1979, our domestic consumption has increased now we consume 30% of our production, oil production at home, as I said we are importing four billion dollars of petrol each year, if we continue in this way we are going to be a net importer in a short time and that is going to be very difficult for an economy which is so much dependent on oil, so it is definitely economic for Iran to diversify its energy sources, as a matter of fact it was first the United States of America and the Stanford Research Institute which advised the King of Iran 35 years ago to diversify its energy sources and to embark on a nuclear programme to produce 20,000 megawatt of energy by the year 1994, we have well passed that point we are not producing any nuclear energy at the moment but we are embarking on a programme to product 20,000 megawatt of the nuclear energy by the year 2020 which is just simply the effort to meet the needs of the Iranian people. |
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| BRIAN |
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Yes but running short of oil if that’s the position is not a reason not to use the natural gas for electricity production, especially when you have so much of it and when you have so much of it it would seem that you could use it for other purposes as well as electricity generation without running short of that particular fuel and after all uranium is a finite resource as well. |
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| AMBASSADOR Well Brian I think that it is the right of any nation to diversity its energy sources and Iran as a member of NPT is fully entitled and as a matter of fact according to the article of the NPT it's an inalienable right of all the member states to enjoy nuclear energy and why Iran should be excluded this is discrimination, this is double standard and we cannot accept that. |
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| DEBORAH |
You talked Ambassador about Iran's freedom to have its own policies, I wondered how you reconcile that with Iran's objection to the free press publishing for example those cartoons that you didn’t like? |
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| AMBASSADOR Well I think we are free to express our opposition to an insulting and hurtful act by a number of irresponsible media outlets in Europe and some other countries. The Muslims have a very high regard for their holy prophet and all the holy prophets of different religions and as a matter of fact we would not tolerate insult to any of the prophets – prophet Jesus, prophet Moses, and prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, so that is our right to object to insulting and hurtful and irresponsible behaviour by some media. |
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| LISA |
Thank you very much for joining us this morning Mr Ambassador. |
