Navy set to aid Greenpeace
Australia’s Chief Clerk KEVIN Rudd yesterday refused to rule out using the Royal Australian Navy to spy on the Japanese whaling fleet and collect evidence for an international court challenge against its annual hunt.
The Rudd Government has already moved to remove legal impediments to any challenge, with cabinet agreeing last week to dump the Howard government’s legal opposition to the move.What legal opposition is that, Rudd? I think you will find the Howard Government had legal advise that they couldn’t send RAN ships out on the High seas to stop the Japanese pursuing a legal activity. How were they expected to stop them – with bofors or missiles?. Force was the only answer and it isn’t an acceptable answer. According to journalist Mathew Franklin the Howard Government failed;
The Howard administration condemned the hunt. But while it worked hard through the International Whaling Commission to prevent Japanese attempts to overturn the whaling ban, it failed to confront the Japanese fleet in Australian-controlled Antarctic waters.It didn’t fail. it refused – any action other than keeping a watch on the Japs activities would’ve been subject to International Law. Rudd is well aware that he can’t use force to stop them thus he will have the Navy deployed thousands of miles from home on a watching brief to confirm something we already know. What’s the point of having Navy Photographers record harpooning of whales when the Japs freely admit they are doing it. All this as a sop to the Greenies after Rudd refused to put Australia’s economy on pause at the Bali ‘Green Fest’. The RAN must be rolling their eyes while they run around looking for Arctic weather gear.
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great idea, lets just waste some defence dollars and demoralise sailors in an entirely futile PR move.
Mr Rudd certainly is a capable leader…
Under international law, the seas below latitude 60S are “demilitarized”, so the RAN can’t send a warship there anyway, but the Japanese can legally sail wherever they like in the Southern Ocean.
Sail south and wave goodbye to the Navy.
Will KRudd allow the defence imagery to be released to the public? Why not just send some Orions around once a day from out of Hobart? Cheaper, and as stated, just confirms what the Japs have already said they are going to do. Also gets around the ‘demilitarisation’ of the Antarctic, as the overflights won’t be a permanent presence, nor would they be an armed aircraft.
In the end, this will waste time and money to achieve precisely nothing. Will this be an ongoing RAN commitment? How many ships can they follow/track at any one time? What assets do you divert from northern patrols, patrol boats? Use FFG’s? And the ALP had the gall to bitch about ADF assets being used on roles not related to core business ie OP Relex.