Greenpeace yesterday called on Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to contact his Japanese counterpart Yasuo Fukuda and demand a halt to whaling in waters off Antarctica.
Greenpeace's Australia Pacific chief Steve Shallhorn said Rudd, who made campaign pledges to keep Australia strongly opposed to whaling before his Labor Party won power last month, needed to become personally involved in the issue.
"There's still time, this issue is developing, and I think it's appropriate for the Australian prime minister to pick up the phone and talk to the Japanese prime minister," he told reporters.
Shallhorn, however, welcomed Australia's plan, announced on Wednesday, to send an unarmed customs vessel and an aircraft to the Southern Ocean to monitor the Japanese whaling fleet and step up diplomatic efforts to end the cull.
The fleet set off from Japan last month on a mission to hunt around 1,000 whales, including endangered humpback and fin whales.
"I think the point could be made even more forcibly of Australia's opposition to whaling in the Southern Ocean if it's a head of government to head of government communication," Shallhorn said.
He also claimed Japan was planning to build a new whaling factory ship with the capacity to double the nation's whale kill.
The whaler Nisshin Maru was temporarily disabled in a fire that killed a crew member earlier this year and Shallhorn said a Japanese fisheries industry newspaper had reported a new vessel was being considered last May.
An official at the Japanese Fisheries Agency's whaling division denied there had been a decision to replace the whaler.
Meanwhile, Japanese foreign ministry officials have denied striking a deal with the US to drop plans to hunt humpback whales in this year's cull.
US Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said on Wednesday that a deal might have been struck -- an announcement that was hailed by Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett yesterday.
"It'd be a welcome development, but it's not enough," Garrett told Nine Network TV.
Japan should also abandon plans to kill 50 fin whales and 900 minke whales this season, he said.
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