Minister warns against whaling confrontation.

Minister warns against whaling confrontation. :

"The Japanese Government insists the whales are caught for scientific purposes but environmental groups say the whales are sold on the commercial market."

This is becoming very difficult. The Japanese sailor has every right to be treated for his appendicitis in Tasmania and there is no one who would stop him form having the medical aid he needs. We are a nation which does not support whaling and we have not since the seventies. We do feel very strongly about it. The Japanese ship is here to catch whales in the Antarctic Ocean for scientific purposes. People are disputing whether you need to kill that many whales - there is talk of 200- for scientific purposes. Senator Bob Brown has called it a diplomatic incident and it is, really.

We belong to the IWC as does Japan although there was a bit of skating on thin ice earlier in the year:

"They're ships that are required to get into the Southern Ocean and they're doing research that is sanctioned by the whaling commission and supported by countries like New Zealand and Australia," he said.

"I want to make sure and can I just reassure your listeners, that we will not allow any vessel that is actively engaged with whaling to be in an Australian port and there'll be no exceptions."

Japan threatens whaling commission withdrawal


The difficulty is that the Japanese boat has come to collect its scientific evidence in an area the IWC has declared the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. As a result there have been a number of protests lodged and the disbelief that agreements mean nothing is making people frustrated with the process of commissions being organised to set the record straight and then the daily monitoring of that if people ignore it. Is money at the bottom of all of this again?

Antarctic whale slaughter must not be tolerated