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Rudd ‘Over-Promised’ On Whaling Ban

(From AAP) The Rudd Government has “over-promised” on its plan to stop Japanese whaling operations, a former environment minister says. But diplomacy was still the way to resolve the issue, Ian Campbell said.

Mr Campbell, who quit politics last May and is now working for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, wants to see the International Whaling Commission, presently meeting in Chile, renamed the International Whale Conservation Union.

“What (Prime Minister) Kevin Rudd and (Environment Minister) Peter Garrett tried to do before the election was try and play one-upmanship on it,” he told Fairfax Radio Network this morning.

“When I was minister (in the previous Howard government) we worked as hard or harder than any other government in the world at any time to bring an end to whaling.

“I think they (the Rudd Government) over-promised and now they’re not quite delivering on the rhetoric. ”

Mr Campbell said the government was doing what it could.

“And I’m maintaining the rage a bit, to use an old Gough Whitlamism.

“I think that diplomacy has to be used. Every method has to be used to bring an end to the barbarism that the Japanese inflict on whales.”

Humpback whales, like those seen regularly off the NSW coast heading north on their annual migration, were under threat, Mr Campbell said.

“The Japanese have said they will kill humpback whales.

“They backed off because of pressure from the United States and Australia last year but they are now under threat but very importantly, so are 1,000 other whales.”

When the Japanese killed whales they fired a harpoon into them and blew up a grenade inside them, Mr Campbell said.

“Often these whales take somewhere between seven and 10 minutes to die, usually by drowning and asphyxiation.

“It’s a barbaric act.”

 

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