Matt McCarten: Government failed in duty to stand up for citizens

Good on Pete Bethune. He's the epitome of a good rugged Kiwi bloke prepared to put himself on the line for what he believes.

You have to admire someone who is prepared to risk his life and liberty for a cause. The political elite have been a disgrace from the start, first mocking the Sea Shepherd campaign in the Antarctic, then smirking when the Japanese whaling fleet "security ship", the Shonan Maru II, deliberately rammed and sank one of the protest ships, putting people's lives at risk.

Our Government's response to this blatant criminal behaviour by the whaling pirates was a disgrace.

It seems passing votes protecting whales and other endangered species at world talk-fests is one thing, but even tepidly supporting ordinary citizens trying to stop death ships flouting the international ban is obviously beyond the moral compass of John Key and Foreign Minister Murray McCully.

No one, not even the whale meat industry, believes for a second the Japanese commercial poachers' claim that they are killing whales exclusively for research, as permitted under the International Whaling Commission rules. The whaling death ships in the Antarctic waters were a deliberate breach of international agreements.

Bethune was on the Ady Gil when it was sunk so I understand perfectly his outrage and his decision to board Shonan Maru to demand compensation for that ship's act of piracy. His actions were intended to escalate the campaign and publicise the actions of the whalers.

The poachers' arrogance in kidnapping Bethune and pretending it was an arrest for assault was laughable. Our Government's wimpy hand-wringing in response was even more pathetic. The first responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens, and it failed miserably.

What McCully should have done was call in the Japanese ambassador and demand the immediate release of Bethune and, if necessary, send a ship to intercept the whaling fleet to effect his release. Frankly I don't know why our Government didn't have a naval ship trailing the poachers and ensuring the safety of our protest flotilla in the first place.

Bethune's incarceration for five months with a political show trial was political farce. The criminals put the victim on trial, while our Government looked away. I understand why Bethune's lawyers, paid by his employer, advised him to plead guilty so he could be released. And I can sympathise with how his family would have felt.

But my advice would have been that this wasn't a criminal case: it was a politically motivated action by the whalers to silence the protests against their crimes. Let the Japanese defend their whaling actions in a court of law.

That's the last thing the Japanese Government or its whale meat industry would have wanted. Bethune's lawyers' advice to kowtow to the court got him released but their strategy of admitting criminal guilt ensured a public relations victory for his captors and undermined Bethune's legitimacy.

Our Government would have breathed a sigh of relief. The Government's cowardice has disturbing parallels to its actions over Green Party co-leader Russel Norman's protest at Parliament against the suppression of the Tibetan people.

Our leaders seemed more animated about the possibility of embarrassing the visiting Chinese delegation than about the Tibetan people's human rights or Norman's legal right as an MP to protest.

Instead of upholding our country's stated policy of supporting human rights, our senior parliamentarians now want to change the rules to stop MPs protesting against oppression if it upsets visiting trade partners.

New Zealanders are not naive. We understand moral principles and international trade sometimes conflict. What is important is how we manage any conflict with integrity. In both of these cases our political leaders opted for craven expediency.

Bethune and Norman were irritating to some, but they were also right. We need more individual Kiwis showing a bit of backbone standing up to the powerful when they are wrong. Because one thing's for sure, this spineless Government won't.