Australian court rules against Japan's whalers - Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha P/L failed to show and Japanese Government says 'so what'

How the international media saw the Australia-Japan whaling standoff yesterday.

"SYDNEY, Jan 15 (Reuters) - In a purely symbolic act but one that could inflame bilateral ties, an Australian court ruled on Tuesday that a Japanese whaling company broke environment laws by killing whales in Australia's Antarctic waters.
The Federal Court of Australia ordered Japanese whaler Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd stop killing whales in Australia's Antarctic whale sanctuary, saying that unless it was "restrained" it would continue to kill and injure whales.
But the court has no jurisdiction outside Australia and the Japanese government denied the whalers were doing anything illegal.
"According to the International Whaling Commission, what the Japanese whaling fleet is doing in the South Pacific and Antarctic region is legal," said Tomohiko Taniguchi, a spokesman at Japan's Foreign Ministry.
An official at Japan's Fisheries Ministry declined to comment.
An Australian fisheries ship is searching for the Japanese whaling fleet to gather photographic evidence for an international court case aimed at stopping Japan's annual "scientific" hunt.
Japan plans to hunt almost 1,000 minke and fin whales for research over the Antarctic summer, but has abandoned the cull of 50 humpback whales after international condemnation and a formal diplomatic protest by 31 nations.
Humane Society International (HSI) launched legal action against Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd in 2004, seeking a federal court injunction against harvesting in the Australian Whale Sanctuary."
Reuters yesterday:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUST271709

 

How Australia saw the same situation.

"1. THE COURT DECLARES that the respondent has killed, injured, taken and interfered with Antarctic minke whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) and fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) and injured, taken and interfered with humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in contravention of sections 229, 229A, 229B and 229C of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth), (the "Act"), and has treated and possessed such whales killed or taken in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in contravention of sections 229D and 230 of the Act, without permission or authorisation under sections 231, 232 or 238 of the Act.

2. THE COURT ORDERS that the respondent be restrained from killing, injuring, taking or interfering with any Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) or humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Australian Whale Sanctuary, or treating or possessing any such whale killed or taken in the Australian Whale Sanctuary, unless permitted or authorised under sections 231, 232 or 238 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth)."

Austlii.edu.au Federal Court of Australia full judgment:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2008/3.html?query=^whaling

New Labor broom sweeps away Australia-India uranium deal

What a relief! Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith announced yesterday that the Rudd Government was calling off the former Howard Government's deal to export uranium to India.

It was always a totally mad idea to send uranium to a country which has resisted signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Is Yamba being developed to the drowning point?

Here are a few selected quotes from an article in The Daily Telegraph today.

* FOR years it has been a sleepy surfing hamlet but it's about to be violently awoken from its slumber.
* Like many NSW coastal towns Yamba's real estate market has been described as a "sleeping giant ready to explode".
* Because of its location, demographer Bernard Salt has pin-pointed Yamba as the next NSW North Coast "boom town". He said the combination of an upgraded Pacific Highway and sea-changers making the move, cash in hand, had made it a prime target for developers to swoop in.
"Yamba is a place to watch out for - it's the next cab off the rank after Byron Bay," Mr Salt said.
* The iconic Blue Dolphin Holiday Park is also being developed. It is getting a $300 million makeover which will see the $32-a-night family camping holiday destination replaced by four to five star luxury tourist and permanent apartments.
The first stage of 55 strata title apartments will begin in May, with final building expected to be completed in six years.
* "It's a great family place that's got everything - a river and beach - and we'd hate to see the death of the family holiday just so people can make a few bucks," Mrs Apps said. "However I suppose, unfortunately, that is progress."
* He said Clarence Valley Council was working on a development control plan to preserve coastal heritage.
The Daily Telegraph article
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23050802-5006009,00.html

Nowhere in this newspaper article was there any mention of the potential negative impact of climate change on Yamba.
The CSIRO has warned the NSW North Coast of potential problems due to freshwater shortages, increased storm activity, ocean storm surges, and seawater innundation.
This blog has also drawn attention to growing concern amongst coastal residents.

The Clarence Valley's oldest and largest newspaper The Daily Examiner published this worst case map projection on 16 Feburary 2007. It shows barely anything in Yamba left above the maximum high water mark.
Before this stage is reached Yamba might well be subject to natural disaster mass evacuation using the one small bridge out of town which leads to safe inland areas and emergency assistance.

Map from http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/

Mungo MacCallum on the real start to the Rudd Government term in office

"And this, as they say, is where the story really starts. The government is officially back to work preparing to launch itself across the uncharted seas of its election promises.
It is not as if the holiday period has been entirely unproductive; apart from the headline items like Bali and Iraq, there has been a fair amount of activity behind the scenes. Legislation is prepared for the early elimination of AWAs, work is well advanced on an apology to the stolen generation, and a review is under way of the grants system to eliminate the corruption of secret ministerial vetoes and approvals and end the pernicious practice of stopping grants to environmental and charitable organizations that criticise government policy.
A government vessel is on the track of the Japanese whalers in the Antarctic Protection Zone. All the new ministers are receiving a crash-course from their departments (and, it is to be hoped, vice-versa) and in spite of the snide comments of the Murdoch tabloids, it is considered unlikely that our workaholic Prime Minister has spent the entire break with his feet up watching television while drinking beer and eating party pies.
However this is the week where it all starts happening – or at least the week when Kevin Rudd and his merry band start making the hard decisions about exactly what “it” is going to entail, at least for the next couple of years.
As has been made painfully clear, some of the promises, especially those made with the intent of neutralising as much as possible of John Howard’s farewell bribe fest, were, to put it mildly, extravagant. The biggest and meanest of them, the elephant preparing to rampage through an already over-heated economy, is of course the tax cuts. Rudd did not quite match Howard’s bid of $34 billion; he had the decency to pare a bit off the edges. But $31 billion is still a lot of loot, no matter how you spin it.
In a situation where the smart money is on yet another official interest rate rise in February and when the banks are already slotting in unofficial rises to preserve their record profit margins, it must at least be asked whether providing a hefty increase in available spending money is quite the conservative economic management Rudd and his treasurer, Wayne Swan, boasted of during the election campaign.
Obviously, Rudd is anxious to keep faith with the voters; he would seriously hate being accused of carrying on the Howard tradition of core and non-core promises. But keeping faith can be looked at in a broader context than just the tax cuts. Rudd’s overall promise was to reduce the burden on working families; for months we heard it every waking hour and one suspects that Labor members were mouthing it in their sleep. This is what he has pledged to deliver, and he simply can’t deliver it through a bonanza of tax cuts which are promptly eaten up by increases in interest rates, never mind the wider damage that a spending spree would do to the economy.
The clever thing to do, from both a political and an economic point of view, would be to hand the money back to taxpayers, but as superannuation, not as an immediate cut; this would avoid putting any pressure on inflation while returning the cash. But this would involve breaking an election promise, and no amount of Howard-style legalistic weaseling could deny it. In this case honesty is simply not the best policy, and the cabinet will have to make the choice. Welcome to the real world of government, Messrs Rudd and Swan.
And while they’re at it, the ministers might like to consider whether other aspects of the me-tooism they indulged in as strategic electioneering should really be considered immutable. "
Mungo MacCallum at Crikey.com.au:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20080114-Mungo-This-is-the-week-where-it-all-starts-happening.html