Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I reject the premise of Senator Whish-Wilson's question in relation to Australia's relationship with Japan. We, in fact, have an extremely valuable, high-level, special, strategic partnership with Japan, which is borne of many years engagement—and very important bilateral engagement, at that—across a range of areas. We cooperate in our own region here in the Pacific and more broadly in the Indo-Pacific. We are cooperating strongly in relation to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, which I would have thought may have been of passing interest to the Australian Greens, but perhaps not. That denuclearisation requires the engagement of countries like Japan, Australia, the United States, China and a number of our other counterparts to ensure the greatest pressure is applied to the DPRK in relation to that denuclearisation. In relation to whaling, Japan is, of course, well aware of Australia's strong opposition to commercial whaling and to scientific whaling, as it is described. (Time expired)