Jonathan Milne: Time to speak out against Japan's whaling agenda

There's a big new hospital on Tuvalu - built with Japanese aid money.

The University of the South Pacific is conducting a research project for Kiribati on the impact of global warming - funded largely by Japan.

The problem is, everyone knows Japan's aid comes not just with a string attached, but with a veritable harpoon cable: support for whaling.

This year, impoverished countries like Kiribati and the land-locked African country of Mali have suddenly discovered the funds to pay the International Whaling Commission's exorbitant membership fees. And it appears that when the IWC meets in two weeks in Korea, the Japanese-led pro-whaling faction will for the first time have a slim majority.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, visiting Tokyo last week, told Japan's foreign minister New Zealand would participate in an international diplomatic campaign against Japan's plans to expand "scientific" whaling.

But no mention was made of whaling when she and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi emerged from their key meeting the following day: her focus was on persuading Japan to drop trade barriers. After all, exports to Japan were worth $3.4 billion last year, making it New Zealand's third-largest export market.

And perhaps Clark knows New Zealand is just plankton swimming against the tide of voting nations at the IWC.

This month, Japan will not have the 75 per cent majority needed to overturn the longstanding commercial whaling moratorium. But it looks likely to have the simple majority needed to abolish the IWC's conservation committee, overturn last year's humane killing resolution, and tellingly, ensure voting is done in secret.

As for its plans this month to expand its scientific whaling into Antarctic waters, increase its cull of minke whales, and begin killing humpback and fin whales - Japan doesn't even need to put it to a vote.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand's representative on the IWC, describes scientific whaling as a "bloody great loophole" allowing whale flesh to be sold in Tokyo's fish markets and put on the menus of Japanese school canteens.

Cheerleaders, including Maori members of the World Council of Whalers, argue that the sustainable use of whales is a traditional cultural practice for many indigenous communities. Japanese scientists say minke whale numbers have trebled in the past 30 years, but the IWC scientific committee says they have plummeted.

Last week an International Fund for Animal Welfare report said whale watching was worth $120 million to New Zealand in tourism dollars last year, showing "whales are worth more alive than dead".

Japanese boats have been seized for flouting New Zealand fishing rules, and today this paper reveals a diplomatic stoush over a senior Japanese diplomat fined for shellfish poaching.

With such a consistent and flagrant disregard for the New Zealand law and environment, from the top down, it is time for Helen Clark to stop tiptoeing softly round Japan's sensitivities.