Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I think I speak on behalf of most Australians today when I say that they are disappointed, frustrated and just a little bit angry that yesterday a Japanese harpoon fleet left Japanese waters to travel for the Southern Ocean, to what is deemed to be an international whale sanctuary, under the guise of doing research whaling, which has been found by the International Court of Justice to not be an excuse to slaughter whales. In fact, their actions have been found to be illegal. The motion in front of the Senate today is a message from the parliament that this government needs to take strong action. It needs to raise this issue at the highest level, with the Japanese Prime Minister, when our Prime Minister meets him in two weeks time. We need to make sure our Customs vessel is sent—in line with LNP policy going into the last election—to monitor the Japanese boats. And we need to immediately launch a new set of legal actions through the United Nations.