Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—The message from the ambassador of Japan regarding whaling makes very disputable claims about the behaviour of the Steve Irwin, the ship of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in Antarctic waters. In fact, my information is quite the reverse. It is of a series of quite dangerous manoeuvres which, if in fact are true, constitute breaches of the international law of the sea with regard to the behaviour of the Japanese whaling vessels. The matters are in dispute, but I cannot and will not accept these bald and unsubstantiated claims by the ambassador of Japan. Ultimately it comes to this: it is the Japanese government, which is endorsing the bloody and unforgivable slaughter of the whales in Antarctic waters, including waters which are claimed by Australia, that is in the dock here. It is a matter of international condemnation and revulsion by the majority of Australians that the Japanese are slaughtering the very whales that we love to see off our coasts and that we want to see in our Antarctic waters. The Greens reject the claims by the Japanese ambassador and seek that the ambassador looks instead at the behaviour of these destructive and violent whaling ships which have no place in the Southern Ocean—indeed in any ocean in the world.