Midnight Oil

Subject: Sea Shepherd: Peter Garrett’s Year of Living Hypocritically
From: "rosslocket" <rosslocket@optusnet.com.au>
Date: 21/11/2008, 2:23 pm
To: powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au

Friday, 21 November 2008

Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson writes:

There is nothing more insincere than a politician just before an 
election. They will fire promises from the hip with a veneer of 
passion and resolve that is peeled quickly away after the votes are 
counted.

Australian Environmental Minister Peter Garrett is a case in point. 
When Mr. Garrett was an activist musician with Midnight Oil he was a 
man to be proud of, a person to be deeply admired for his dedication 
to the cause of conservation. I once stood with him on the logging 
roads of the Clayquot Valley on Canada's Vancouver Island to oppose 
clear-cutting. Midnight Oil performed a concert in 1993 in the middle 
of a logging road. Damn but we loved them and we loved Peter Garrett. 
He was the man!

In November 2007, I advised all of my Australian supporters and 
friends to vote for Labor because according to Mr. Garrett, a Rudd 
government would actually do something to protect whales from illegal 
Japanese whaling activities in the Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary.

Now so many them feel betrayed by Mr. Garrett after a year of anti-
environmental stands ranging from being pro-dredging of Port Phillip 
Bay, to supporting logging and new pulp mills in Tasmania, to 
condemning kangaroos, to appeasing the Japanese whalers.

How was I to know in November 2007 that Peter Garrett had been turned 
to the service of the darkside? He seemed like the knight-errant of 
modern Australian politics, a man of integrity and courage ready to 
fight for justice and the planet.

What we have now is the same old, same old. Just another reined in, 
subservient pawn in a political machine, who does what he is told and 
seeks to flatter and favour his political handlers instead of the 
people who elected him.

The statement below was issued by Peter Garrett when he was Shadow 
Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage on September 18 
2007:

Government must stand up and stop Japanese whaling

A Rudd Labor Government would not stand in the way of Humane Society 
International's (HSI) legal challenge in the Federal Court to request 
an injunction to stop Japanese whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha 
Ltd from killing whales within the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

Labor has a clear policy position that we will enforce Australian law 
banning the slaughter of whales in the Australian Whale Sanctuary. 
Therefore, Labor would enforce any injunction the courts decides to 
grant against Japanese whalers.

I wish to send a powerful and clear message to the Australian public 
that Labor believes in enforcing Australian law. This is the right 
and obvious thing to do.

The Howard Government has made a mockery of our laws by refusing to 
enforce the Whale Sanctuary protections, and it's just not good 
enough, frankly.

There is an ocean of clear water between the Howard Government and 
Labor on the issue of whaling.

Labor has the guts to stand up to the Japanese whalers – the Howard 
Government will do no such thing.

Mr Turnbull is all talk and no action. All pretty pictures of whales 
in his election material and no results.

We expect the Government will not show support for this hearing. You 
wouldn't see such timidity from a Labor Government.

If elected, Rudd Labor will not stand in the way of enforcing 
Australian law banning the slaughter of whales in the Australian 
Whale Sanctuary.

It's now hard to believe that this man Peter Garrett made this 
statement.

When Senator Ian Campbell was Environment Minister he did much more 
than Mr. Garrett and he actually gave assistance to us in our efforts 
to protect the whales.

All that has changed as the Rudd government and Peter Garrett use 
passive-aggressive tactics to hurt the Sea Shepherd Conservation 
Society financially and to force us to not utilise Australia as a 
base.

This week Australia and Japan announced that they would be seeking 
a "diplomatic solution."

Translated this means more talk and little or no action.

According to an AFP wire story:

A Japanese foreign ministry official privy to the discussion 
confirmed that both countries were employing diplomacy in the row.

He also affirmed that Smith had sought to distance the Australian 
government from militant environmentalists who have vowed to stop the 
Japanese hunt by force.

"Foreign Minister Smith stressed that the Australian government is 
making a clear distinction from the illegal action taken by anti-
whaling groups," the official said.

It is very interesting to hear that Australia is referring to Sea 
Shepherd actions as illegal when there is no specification as to just 
what illegal action Sea Shepherd is allegedly doing.

The situation is clear. Japanese whalers are targeting endangered 
whales in an established whale sanctuary in violation of a global 
commercial whaling moratorium and in contempt of an Australian 
Federal Court ruling prohibiting Japanese whaling in the Australian 
Antarctic Economic Exclusion zone.

Where is the difference between what Mr. Garrett accused Mr. Turnbull 
of not doing in 2007 and what Mr. Garrett is also not doing today?

I especially like what Mr. Garrett said in the conclusion of his 
statement of September 2007: "You wouldn't see such timidity from a 
Labor Government. If elected, Rudd Labor will not stand in the way of 
enforcing Australian law banning the slaughter of whales in the 
Australian Whale Sanctuary."

We are seeing such timidity again but this time, it is a timidity 
dressed in hypocrisy. The Rudd Garrett government not only has failed 
to stand up for the whales, they have now decided to weaken and 
harass the only group in the world that is actually saving the lives 
of whales in the Southern Ocean.

A spokesperson for Mr. Garrett told the media that Sea Shepherd was a 
group of extremists.

But the question must be asked. What is extreme about upholding 
international conservation law against illegal whaling activities? 
What is extreme about doing so without causing physical injuries to 
the whalers? What is extreme about doing the job that the government 
of Australia should be doing but clearly does not wish to do?

It is frustrating beyond measure to struggle to raise the funds to 
voyage to the Southern Ocean while Greenpeace collects tens of 
millions of dollars to supposedly do the same thing and then 
announces two weeks before the Japanese fleet is scheduled to depart 
that they will not be doing what they were collecting the money to do.

It is frustrating to have supported a politician based on promises he 
has refused to deliver and to suffer the insult upon injury of having 
this same politician repay our support of him with hostility and 
harassment.

On November 30th, our ship representing people from around the world 
and including a number of Australian citizens will depart from 
Brisbane to do the job that the Australian government refuses to do, 
the job that Peter Garrett only a year ago derided Mr. Turnbull for 
not doing.

For when all is said and done, it appears that Mr. Rudd and Mr. 
Garrett do not wish to answer to the people who elected them. They 
are more interested in appeasing the demands of the Japanese 
government and choosing to surrender in the face of trade threats 
than to do what is right for the whales and what the Australian 
people elected them to do.

At least Mr Garrett has had a lesson in real politik this last year. 
He has discovered that talk really is cheap and that his real masters 
are in Tokyo. He has discovered that the midnight oil he is now 
burning is whale oil and the lives of the whales are secondary to the 
business of business.

I wonder what he will be saying when the next election rolls around 
and some shadow minister reads a similar statement to the one he read 
last year to Mr. Turnbull.

It seems that in politics the more things change the more they really 
do stay the same.