Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I do not think Australia can do this historic work of keeping the moratorium in place by itself. We know it cannot do that. It can do it, as we have shown successfully in the last two years, by building up the pro-conservation vote and getting the countries that have a like mind to Australia to work together. They are now doing that in a way that has not occurred since prior to the moratorium coming into force, which I remind Labor Party senators—in fact, all senators—was a historic change of policy put in place by Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal government. It has been a bipartisan policy ever since. It is really only under the Beazley Labor policy desperation that you see this sort of carping and whining and undermining of the Australian position—a virtually unheard-of undermining of Australia’s position—while, as I say, we have a dedicated Australian delegation, including people like Nicola Beynon from the Humane Society, representatives from Project Jonah and dedicated officials from Foreign Affairs and my own department, working with like-minded countries from around the world. And yet we get this constant carping and whingeing.

I really need to focus on this constant red herring that Labor, and I think sometimes others, introduce that there is some silver bullet in legal action. I did take the opportunity in St Kitts to meet with Minister Carter from New Zealand and Minister Bradshaw from Great Britain, as well as Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who was a former Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand and who has been an IWC commissioner for many years since, as well as a member of international courts and a distinguished international lawyer in his own right. Each one of those distinguished people, who I suspect know a lot more about the legal side of the Whaling Commission than either the senator who asked the question or the Labor Party spokesman, has reached the conclusion that legal action is entirely unlikely to be successful.

That was reinforced when I discussed it with and in fact read a book written by Professor Alexander Gillespie from the University of Waikato in New Zealand, who was at the conference as part of the Kiwi delegation, who reaches the same conclusion. I would be happy to refer anyone who thinks that there is a silver bullet in taking legal action to that. The reality is that keeping the moratorium in place and keeping a strong group of like-minded countries and maintaining a majority at the International Whaling Commission has ensured that tens of thousands of whales have been saved. If the moratorium fails or if it is unwound, that will see thousands of whales beginning to be slaughtered again.

On the issue of scientific whaling, we have made it quite clear as a government that using the scientific provisions as an excuse for commercial whaling—which is done by both Iceland and Japan; Norway does only commercial whaling—is an abuse. It really is something that needs to be brought to an end. We know that working in the whaling commission is the only practical place to achieve that.

We need to turn to what the Labor Party did when they were in this situation. The last time there was an increase in the whale intake under the scientific provision was when the Labor Party was in power. They did not take legal action. They received the same advice that we did. They also did nothing in terms of the diplomacy side. On not one single IWC mission did Labor send a minister, nor did they take international concerted action in creating a cooperative body. The Labor Party really have a shameful record in this regard. (Time expired)