'Whale kill tapes' taken by government must be made public: Australian Greens

[Annces]

The Federal Government won't release its whale kill tapes for fear of annoying the Japanese, the Australian Greens claim.

An Australian Customs vessel obtained footage of Japanese whaling in Antarctic waters during the summer of 2007-08.

A short amount of footage was made public but most of it has never been seen.

Greens Senator Bob Brown tried unsuccessfully to see the footage under Freedom of Information laws.

"Is this not an obsequious decision by the Rudd Government to back down to the first bit of pressure from Japan because it simply didn't like the bloody business of whaling and the pictures of it being released to the world public?" Senator Brown told the Senate.

Minister Penny Wong said the full footage had not been released because of potential legal action.

Labor had said it would use the footage to take Japanese whaling to an international court, although no action has been taken yet.

Senator Wong said the Government remained absolutely opposed to whaling


http://www.smh.com.au/environment/whale-watch/whale-kill-tapes-must-be-made-public-greens-20090316-8zqf.html

[flvegan]

1. I'm shocked, I tell you. Just shocked.

:eyes: Spineless hacks.

[Annces]

2. They don't want to offend the Japanese

But have no problem offending their own citizens.

[Nihil]

3. Just shows who pays the politicians the most ...

> But have no problem offending their own citizens.

They have no problem offending the rest of the world either so
at least the Aussies have plenty of equally-minded company ...