Anti-Whaling group Sea Shepherd has accused the Australian government of reneging on a promise to monitor Japanese whaling, after capturing graphic images of the latest slaughter in the Southern Ocean. Former Greens leader and Sea Shepherd Australia chairman Bob Brown said the Abbott government had failed to deliver on its promise to send an aircraft to the Southern Ocean to monitor the annual whaling season.
Dr Brown went further, using the graphic footage of the carcass and blood-strewn deck of the Japanese vessel Nisshin Maru to urge Australia and New Zealand to send naval vessels to uphold the region's international whale sanctuary. "This bloody operation would simply not be occurring if we had prime ministers in Canberra and Wellington with the spine to stand up to this illegal operation," he said in Hobart.
"There should be naval vessels down there to defend Australia's sovereignty and its whales in our backyard. A Customs vessel was promised, with surveillance. That hasn't happened. As a minimum (they should) keep that election promise."