Greens flag legislation to ban whaling in Australia's Antarctic waters


THE Australian Greens have flagged legislation that aims to prohibit whaling in Australia's Antarctic waters.

The Greens also require the government to seek an injunction in the International Court of Justice against this year's whaling hunt.

The move came after two Sea Shepherd vessels were involved in a confrontation with the Japanese whaling fleet at the weekend, with protesters being hosed with high-pressure water cannon as they harassed the whalers.

Greens leader Bob Brown reiterated his party's call for naval or aerial surveillance of the whaling slaughter, with filmed evidence released to the world's media to shame the Japanese fleet.

"Surveillance by Australia could also prevent human lives being lost during the whale-killing season," he said.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/greens-flag-legislation-to-ban-whaling-in-austr...


Good to see at least one political party is out to defend against the slaughter of whales.

AUSTRALIA was secretly prepared to cut a deal with Japan to accept a continued whale hunt despite publicly moving to haul Tokyo before an international court over its ''scientific'' whaling program.

US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks reveal Australia was willing to compromise with Japan as late as February last year - but that any deal must result in a much lower level of whaling and exclude the hunt from waters near Antarctica.

A compromise under which Japan would kill 5000 fewer whales over 10 years - provided larger varieties such as humpback and fin whales were not taken and loopholes to allow so-called ''scientific whaling'' were closed - was discussed.
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The disclosures come as pressure mounts on the Gillard government to send its new Southern Ocean patrol ship to watch over the latest confrontation between anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd and the Japanese fleet off the Antarctic coast. Yesterday the fleet and its opponents were navigating along the Antarctic pack ice edge near the Ross Sea, having steamed about 600 nautical miles since Sea Shepherd pounced on the whalers on New Year's Eve, potentially before any whales were killed.

The leaked US diplomatic cables also show that then environment minister Peter Garrett warned the US ambassador in Canberra on February 5 last year that Labor felt boxed in by moves by the Greens in Parliament to examine Japanese ''spy flights'' over anti-whaling ships. Mr Garrett said the flights had strengthened the anti-whaling mood in Australia and made it difficult for the govern- ment to compromise with Japan.

A fortnight later and just ahead of a visit by the Japanese foreign minister to Australia, then prime minister Kevin Rudd went on television to say the hunt must be abandoned. ''What we're putting to the Japanese is to take where they are now, which is the slaughter of some hundreds of whales each year, and reduce that to zero,'' Mr Rudd said on February 19.

He added that Australia would take Japan to the International Court of Justice over the hunt - which the government has done.

WikiLeaks yesterday released a selection of the cables on its website and others were provided exclusively to The Age.

They show the US involvement in the increasingly bitter dispute between Japan and anti-whaling nations, including European countries and Australia. A 2009 cable details how US diplomats urged Japan to take ''symbolic action'' to cut the number of whales killed while promising to ''work hard to make sure the EU and Australia do not block a compromise''.

The US suggested that Japan stop hunting fin whales, but Japan told the US that Australia's proposal to phase out research whaling was ''a non-starter''.

At home, Australian diplomats were also urging their political masters to strike a deal to move past the gridlock at the International Whaling Commission, the key global forum for whaling negotiations.

Paula Watt, of the marine environment section of the Foreign Affairs Department, told the US in January last year that Japan was using tough tactics in the negotiations, but that for any deal to be acceptable to Australia it must include a minimum number of whales saved, suggesting 5000 over 10 years.

But a month later she complained to US diplomats that efforts to strike a deal had ''bounced off'' Mr Garrett and his staff - at the same time as Mr Garrett's chief of staff, David Williams, was telling the US that Australia could accept a compromise.

According to a cable from December 2009, Mr Garrett told the US ''he was personally more committed to ending whaling that the Foreign Affairs experts negotiating with Japan''.

He said he did not support negotiating a deal with Japan to allow coastal whaling, especially if it did not stop whaling in the Southern Ocean.

And in October that year Mr Garrett challenged the Americans over what he saw as unilateral moves in whaling negotiations and attempts to influence internal deliberations in Australia following a letter from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to then foreign minister Stephen Smith.

Mr Smith's deputy chief of staff, Andrew Dempster, told the US the week before that Australia could accept Japan continuing the hunt if it cut the whales killed in the Southern Ocean.

Australia's dispute with Japan has grown over the past year, but in its joint announcement with New Zealand last month over pursing Japan in the international court, the prospect of further negotiations appeared to remain. New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said there would be a ''focus on new diplomatic and communications strategies to try to persuade Japan to end whaling in the Southern Ocean''.

Meanwhile, the 4500-tonne Ocean Protector was tied up in Fremantle yesterday and is not due to leave port for a fortnight.

from The Age Newspaper

aussiefree2ride wrote on Jan 4^th, 2011 at 7:47am:



I now have a suspicion you are void of any potential of entering into any rational discussion.

Perhaps, and I hope you do, perhaps in time you will prove me wrong on this.

For now I will not hold my baited breath.

Sounds good in theory, but I dont see this happening unfortunatley.

The ALP will do nothing, and nothing will change sadly.

Criss crossing bows and deliberately trying to entangle another vessel's rudder is both dangerous and irresponsible woody.

No matter what the Japanese are doing.

I am simply pointing out that even Greenpeace (hardly pro-whalers) have criticised Sea Shepherd's methods.

Rubbish, the video shows it all ... the illegal butchers purposely rammed a stationary boat.

That is why the Japanese sent out a spy plane to find sea shepherd and then hunt them down and ram them.

Why else would you use a spy plane from an Australian Port?

Why are whales more important than tuna? or lambs?

Is management not an option?

It_is_the_Darkness wrote on Jan 4^th, 2011 at 10:55pm:


What about the big lump of cow i just had for dinner? Why are whales any different?

I like cows, i have met a few and they were cool. I like how they give you that big dumb stare, i also like how they taste.
If the Japanese want to eat whale blubber, why can't that be managed? Peacefully and frankly influenced over time till the practice ceases.  

Whats amazing is that its the greeny whale hugging humanists up in arms about this yet they fail to be touched by the HUMANS at the other end.

Arrogant, militant totalitarianism should not be tolerated.