Japan’s expanded whaling program will begin in November 2005.

Japan’s new whale program will mean 1035 whales will get slaughtered in Antarctica every year.

An analysis of the genetics of whale meat being sold legally in Japanese shops has shown Japan’s “scientific” whaling program is nothing more than a thinly disguised commercial meat market.

Japan is not killing whales for science, they are killing them for lunch.

If he wanted to, John Howard could stop the slaughter of whales for so-called ‘scientific purposes’.

Australia must take Japan to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to end the barbaric slaughter of whales once and for all.

The legal advice by Professor Rothwell, prepared for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, shows that Australia could successfully challenge Japanese whaling at that International Tribunal.

The Minister for the Environment, Ian Campbell, has trumpeted his concern for whales, but the test is whether the Howard Government actually saves a single whale.

In 1999 the Howard Government appealed to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to stop Japan fishing for southern blue fin tuna. The then Attorney General Daryl Williams flew to Europe to represent Australia.

In 1999, the Howard Government was willing to take court action against Japan, but in 2005 it intervened in the Federal Court to stop action to protect whales in Australians waters.