Fed: Send a navy ship to watch the Japanese whalers - Brown

AAP General News (Australia)
12-23-2005
Fed: Send a navy ship to watch the Japanese whalers - Brown

EDS: Reissues to correct that Brown's comments were made to Sky News, not ABC Radio,
as previously sent.

CANBERRA, Dec 23 AAP - The federal government needs to take a stronger stand against
whaling and deploy a navy ship in its southern waters to monitor Japanese activities,
Greens leader Bob Brown says.

Senator Brown said the government had done little to stop the slaughter of whales in
Australia's sub-Antarctic zone while impounding dozens of Indonesian fishing boats in
its northern territorial waters.

The senator's comments come as Greenpeace vessels confront Japanese whalers in Australia's
self-proclaimed Southern Ocean whale sanctuary.

He said a key task was to make the Japanese people understand what their whaling ships
were doing in the Antarctic seas.

"If we had a naval surveillance ship down there we'd be able to do that," Senator Brown
told Sky News today.

"Remember, this government has impounded scores of Indonesian fishing boats. It's spent
millions chasing pirate ships, like the Portuguese ship brought into Perth during this
year.

"But when it comes to this piracy of whales in our waters, it seems to be sitting on its hands.

"One has to wonder if that isn't because the prime minister wants to get a free trade
agreement going with the Japanese prime minister in the coming 12 months."

Senator Brown, who said he would join a protest in Hobart tomorrow to meet the arrival
of a Japanese whaler on an emergency medical errand, said Greenpeace was showing the way
to the government.

"The government should be making the stand that Greenpeace is making against what the
Japanese are doing to our whales in our waters," he said.

AAP dep/rj/sd/dep/cdh

KEYWORD: WHALES BROWN (REISSUING)

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