AUSTRALIA is to register a formal protest with Japan as its whaling fleet heads for the Antarctic to slaughter more than 1000 whales including, for the first time, humpbacks.
Australia's Ambassador to Japan, Murray McLean, has been instructed to register Australia's protest at the impending "inhumane" harvest under Japan's scientific whaling program.
Japan takes whales, sometimes from within the Australian-declared whale sanctuary, for so-called scientific purposes under a loophole in International Whaling Commission (IWC) rules.
A moratorium on commercial whaling has been in place since the 1970s but Japan has been fighting hard at IWC meetings to remove the ban.
The formal protest comes as the major parties in the federal election campaign debate the pros and cons of official legal proceedings against the Japanese.
"The Australian government is deeply disappointed by the departure of the Japanese whaling fleet over the weekend to undertake 'scientific' whaling in the Southern Ocean," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
"Australia is implacably opposed to all forms of whaling. The Government again appeals to Japan to reconsider its position on this inhumane practice, which is also opposed by the majority of nations."
Mr Downer said Mr McLean had been instructed to register Australia's protest at the impending lethal take of whales under Japan's scientific whaling program, known as JARPA II.
He said Japan's charge d'affaires in Canberra had this morning been called in to be informed of Australia's concerns.
Mr Downer said that, despite the Government's objection to whaling, it would not be "distracted by pursuing feel-good gestures in taking international legal action against Japan".
"Unlike Labor's spokesman for foreign affairs (Robert McClelland), the Coalition will not threaten to link progress in our discussions on a Japan-Australian free trade agreement with the whaling issue, important as this is."
Mr McClelland today called for stronger action against the whalers by undertaking military surveillance of the whale hunt to gather evidence to take the whalers to international courts.
"We really need to rattle the cage here," he said.
"It's unacceptable that it's not only going on but getting worse. One of the reasons we're planning to use naval vessels for monitoring, rather than interdiction or interception, is to obtain evidence, both to provide to the international community (and) also the Japanese community, on what is involved and the extent of the kill, but also to obtain evidence that can be used both in Australian domestic courts and the international courts."
Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the Government did not believe a legal case would be successful and in fact would be counter-productive.
"If we thought we could win, I promise you, we'd do it," he said.
"But the overwhelming view, the unanimous view, was that if we took legal action against the Japanese, they would be successful largely on technical grounds.
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Australia makes whaling stand
