4 Apr 2010

McCully, Palmer defend NZ approach to whaling

2:44 pm on 4 April 2010

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully and whaling commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer have rebuffed Australian government criticism that New Zealand is opening the door to commercial whaling.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett says a New Zealand proposal would destroy the moratorium on commercial whaling by giving whaling countries the right to kill 1500 whales a year.

However, Mr McCully says that Mr Garrett is misinformed, and that New Zealand's position is identical to Australia's. The Government will consider any plan that brings down the number of whales killed, he says, but there is no concrete proposal on the table yet.

The Government remains completely opposed to all whaling, Mr McCully says, and will be putting its position forcefully at the next meeting of the International Whaling Commission, in June.

Labour's foreign affairs spokesperson Chris Carter says if Japan is allowed to pursue commercial whaling, there's nothing to stop China, Korea or any other country demanding the same right.

But Mr McCully says the proposal is about reducing the overall number of whales being killed.

Moratorium isn't working - Sir Geoffrey

Sir Geoffrey says the Government hasn't agreed to anything but is open to pursuing options that reduce the numbers of whales killed or bring an end to whaling in the Southern Ocean.

Earlier this month, an international working group chaired by Sir Geoffrey drafted a proposal setting out options for controlling whaling if an annual quota is agreed to.

Japan, Norway and Iceland are currently allowed to kill 3000 whales each year. Sir Geoffrey says the current agreement has too many loopholes because any nation can give itself a special permit to do so-called scientific whaling with no limit on numbers.

Five charges laid against activist

Meanwhile, a member of the legal team behind New Zealand anti-whaling activist Peter Bethune says he's stunned at the charges laid against him.

Mr Bethune, of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, boarded a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean on 15 February and was arrested when it returned to Japan last month.

The 44-year-old has now been charged with vandalism, carrying a weapon, injuring a crewman and obstruction of passage of a vessel. He had earlier been charged with trespassing on the ship Shonan Maru II after scaling its deck from a jetski.

If found guilty of trespass, he could get up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 100,000 yen ($NZ1435). Inflicting bodily injury carries a maximum jail term of 15 years, or a fine of up to 500,000 yen ($NZ7170).

Legal system 'tainted by politics'

Seattle lawyer Dan Harris, who has been working on Mr Bethune's defence team, says the Japanese legal system has been tainted by politics, and appears to have given in to the whalers.

Mr Harris says the charges are ridiculous. "Some of them we don't even really know what the factual basis is," he says.

The Japan Coast Guard claims that Mr Bethune injured some of the Shonan Maru II crew by throwing bottles of highly acidic chemicals at the ship. The Sea Shepherd group describes the projectiles as rancid butter stinkbombs.

It also calls the charges bogus and says Mr Bethune has been made a political prisoner.