Commercial whaling plan to be announced

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 23rd, 2010 - 11 comments
Categories: Conservation, national - Tags: ,

A few weeks ago someone said that 3,000 whales a year are being killed. Morons have repeated it ever since as evidence that the moratorium is failing.

The reality is that it is the quotas that total 3,000. The number they kill is far less. About 1500 and not rising.

Why is this important? Because we’re about to be sold a pup by the pro-whaling National Party.

See, John Key is happy to reintroduce commercial whaling. He can’t do that unless he can come to the New Zealand public and say ‘doing this will reduce whaling’.

Japan’s pretty keen to get commercial whaling permitted again too. Knows it can up the kills in the long-run if it wants. In the short-term it’s willing to give its ally Key a hand.

Hence: “Japan willing to compromise on whale quota”

Keyword: Quota. Not kills. Quota.

Japan never kills its whole self-proclaimed quota of whales. This year it only killed 440 of the 935 on its quota. Can slash its quota and not kill one less whale.

I can see it now. Key getting off the plane from Kyoto. Waving a piece of paper in his hand. Proclaiming ‘reduced quotas in our time’.

The media will lap it up. They don’t know the difference between quota and kills.

They’ll probably carry Key from the tarmac on their shoulders.

And not a single whale will be saved.

Update: A deal is due to be announced at the IWC today. Anti-whaling groups are organising a snap protest at Parliament, today at 12. Be there.

11 comments on “Commercial whaling plan to be announced ”

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  1. Bright Red 1
    23 April 2010 at 11:01 am

    outrageous. we’re going to be sold all this spin about lower quotas but in reality it won’t stop the killing.

  2. john 2
    23 April 2010 at 12:03 pm

    We all know now that Barack Obama is just a front man for the American kleptocratic wealthy elite (elite in dosh, nothing else, social responsibility is an alien concept to them). This return to commercial whaling with so called reduced quotas has originated with his administration. But what gets me is our very own kleptocrat leader John Key meekly falls into line, completely reversing NZ’s anti whaling policy and betraying our Australian Cousins who rightly perceive Japanese commercial whaling against IWC ban and the non invasion of Antarctica by commercial actions(The Antarctic Treaty) as the aggression it most certainly is. Couple this with Paula doing ideological obeisance at War Criminal General Colin Powell’s Eisenhower Foundation, plus the continuation of failed neo-liberal,free market policies originating in the failed state of the USA,(38,000,000 on food stamps while Wall Street gets sued for fraud,but takes home hundreds of millions in year end bonusses) . Is our country being run from Washington? After all John has a residence in Hawaii perhaps his heart lies truly there? We should follow the Australians: stop all whaling in the Southern Ocean for ever.

  3. Armchair Critic 3
    23 April 2010 at 2:32 pm

    Is the wind blowing a different way today? The way I read this it seems National want something different today than what they wanted yesterday (though that was never particularly clearly articulated). Has Murray McCully grown some balls or is he just trying to give the appearance of having some?
    FTR, the only whaling plan I want to see advcated by NZ involves the total disestablishment of all whaling fleets and a complete end to whaling.

  4. gobsmacked 4
    23 April 2010 at 4:23 pm

    Breaking news (short and translated version):

    Murray McCully thanks anti-whaling campaigners for giving him a spine. “I couldn’t have done it without you”, says Murray.

    Long way to go, but a small step forward today. Have a good weekend, folks.

  5. Andy B 5
    23 April 2010 at 11:07 pm

    I feel sick.

  6. Hamish Gray 6
    23 April 2010 at 11:12 pm

    Armchair Critic – no, nothing’s changed. The Government’s position was simply misrepresented on this website.

    • Armchair Critic 6.1
      26 April 2010 at 10:40 pm

      HG – I’ll be charitable and say it wasn’t articulated particularly clearly by the government.
      You could just as easily say that anyone who said anything about the government’s position on whaling had misrepresented said position. The government seemed to be either unable or unwilling to say what their position was.
      It was almost like they had forgotten that there is a strong anti-whaling streak in amongst the population. That or they were hoping it had mysteriously gone away.

  7. john 7
    25 April 2010 at 3:34 pm

    Here is an International Petition we can sign to be presented to the IWC against commercial whaling.
    link:

    http://www.avaaz.org/en/whales_under_threat_3/98.php?cl_taf_sign=6Yx1bawl

  8. john 8
    6 May 2010 at 11:50 pm

    Here is a link showing the appeasement of the Japanese desire to legalise commercial whaling has originated in Washington’s Obama Administration probably because the US economy is being propped up from total neo-liberalian collapse by loans from Japan as well as China. Why does John Key take policy directives from Washington? To get a free trade deal? Which will never happen. The failed Greed Machine of the US needs to support its Ag Sector to the max.

    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/05-2

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