Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Siewert, I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes that:

(i)

on 25 November 2008, the Senate urged the Australian Government to set a timeline for legal proceedings in an international court to stop illegal Japanese whaling if Japan does not commit to stop whaling by 8 December 2008,

(ii)

Japanese whaling operations continued past this deadline, and

(iii)

no such legal action has been undertaken by the Government;

(b)

urges the Government to:

(i)

strongly oppose the proposal in the document, ‘The Future of the IWC’, currently before the International Whaling Commission, which seeks to legitimise Japanese whaling operations, and

(ii)

immediately commence international legal action to stop illegal Japanese whaling; and

(c)

condemns the violent actions of the Japanese whaling fleet, who have reportedly thrown metal balls at environmental activists, and used acoustic weapons to send out painful high frequency sound waves.