Japan’s expanded whale slaughter is happening right now in Antarctica.

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

1035 whales will get slaughtered in Antarctic waters this year under Japan’s new whaling program.

300-450 of those whales will be illegally slaughtered in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in Antarctica in breach of Australian law, but the Howard Government refuses to enforce its own law.

An analysis of the genetics of whale meat being sold 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.

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.

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 by Humane Society International to protect whales in Australian waters.