Q+A’s Guyon Espiner Interviews Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

Points of interest:
- “Several thousand” whales will be saved over ten years under new commercial whaling proposals
- New Zealand will only support proposal if it promises a “substantial reduction” in the number of whales killed
- Currently, 1600 whales killed each year commercially
- Claims Australia and New Zealand positions are “very similar” despite disagreement on proposal
- Current whaling moratorium “is not working”
- If Australia takes the whalers to the International Court of Justice and loses, that would “strengthen the Japanese position enormously”
- NGO protests against whaling are “posturing” and will lead to the loss of life
- Peter Bethune: nothing New Zealand government can do to stop him going to court

The interview has been transcribed below. Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

SIR GEOFFREY PALMER interviewed by GUYON ESPINER

GUYON Thank you Geoffrey Palmer for coming in and joining us in the programme this morning we appreciate that. Let's start with the central part of this proposal, and it is only a proposal at this stage. We've had a moratorium on commercial whaling since 1986, but despite that some 33,000 whales have been killed mainly through scientific whaling, recent estimates are that perhaps 1900 to 3000 whales are being killed every year. This deal that we're looking at essentially lifts that moratorium on commercial whaling in return for some caps and some significant reduction in the number of whales killed. How many whales will be saved by this proposal?

SIR GEOFFERY PALMER – In'l Whaling Commission
Over a period of ten years I think several thousand whales would be saved, but you have to remember this is a negotiation. This negotiation is not complete, it has some distance to go, it won't be decided until Agadir [in Morocco] in June when the annual meeting of the Whaling Commission takes place. It is not true that it lifts the moratorium on commercial whaling, the moratorium remains under this proposal, but it is qualified by the extent to which it is agreed that a number of whales can be killed.

GUYON So how many whales are we talking about, how many whales every year are we talking about roughly?

GEOFFREY At the moment 3000 whales are the subject of permits issued by the governments of Japan, Norway, and Iceland, the three whaling nations. That is the number of permits they issue, that is not under international control, it is not under IWC control, and the problem is that if you look at what has happened since the moratorium went in, the moratorium when it started in 1986, just before then they allowed thirteen and a half thousand whales to be killed before the commercial moratorium.

GUYON I don’t want to relitigate that now, you're saying that it's 3000 whales killed a year under these…

GEOFFREY No I'm saying that’s the number of permits that are issued, the number of – they don’t always kill the number that they issue permits for, they're killing on average over 1600 whales a year right now commercially.

GUYON So how many will be killed after this proposal should it go ahead?

GEOFFREY We don’t know because that hasn’t been negotiated yet, but unless it's a substantial reduction it won't be worth countries like New Zealand considering, it has to be a substantial reduction, that’s the whole purpose of this exercise

GUYON You're saying that the moratorium on commercial whaling won't actually be lifted, under what grounds then will whales be killed under this proposal?

GEOFFREY They’ll be killed under an interim arrangement that for ten years there will be an ability for the Whaling Commission to function. This is one of the worst international organisations we have, it is completely dysfunctional, it is a place where there are enormous disputes. For the last two years there's been a complicated international negotiation going on, to try and bring it together so it can work, because if it doesn’t work it will collapse, and if it collapses there'll be nothing to protect the whales.

GUYON Australia doesn’t agree with this proposal, they are saying that with the exception of some indigenous subsistence whaling, that all whaling should eventually be phased out, and it should be phased out within the southern ocean within five years, isn't that the stance that New Zealand should be taking?

GEOFFREY It's not true to say that Australia is the way you say. Australia is part of this negotiation and has been since the beginning, the negotiation is not yet complete, the position that Australia is putting forward is very similar to that of New Zealand. We don’t want any whaling in the southern ocean, we don’t want any commercial whaling. The difficulty is that if you approach this matter like it's an issue of religious zeal, you don’t get anywhere, because we have no way of enforcing our will. If this is going to work this whole negotiation there have to be some compromises on both sides.

GUYON Are you really saying there's no gap at all between New Zealand and Australia on this issue?

GEOFFREY In terms of our objectives there are none.

GUYON So they support a deal which could in a compromise situation see several thousand whales being killed?

GEOFFREY They don’t support any deal, there is no deal yet, it hasn’t been negotiated. It is not complete, it is a work in progress and so no government is committed to this, not the New Zealand government, not the Australian government, this is a complicated international negotiation. You can't turn it into some black and white series of absolutes, in the way that your questions imply you can.

GUYON This is though with all respect, a major change in New Zealand's position on whaling. I mean we have had a staunch opposition to any form of commercial whaling and now we're saying that we are potentially supporting a proposal that would allow that under certain grounds.

GEOFFREY We're not saying that, we're saying that we have to do something to fix the position of whales and make it better so fewer are killed. We're not supporting commercial whaling, I don’t think New Zealand will ever support that. The question is how you achieve your objectives. The only other way of looking at this question is to offer to litigate at the International Court of Justice as Australia is offering to do, we regard that as a very uncertain proposition at all, and if that case were lost the situation would be worse than it is now.

GUYON Are you saying that that could lead to what, a collapse of the Whaling Commission should that case be taken and fail?

GEOFFREY No I think if it failed it would strengthen the Japanese position enormously, that is why we prefer a diplomatic negotiation to see how far that can get. But there is not agreement on the New Zealand government on any of this, they will wait and see what comes out of this, and then decide which way they want to go on it. But if we don’t try to protect the whales, this continual slippage that has been going on, to the point where after the moratorium hardly any whales were being killed, up to the point after it, where there are now permits for 3000 to be killed, this moratorium is not working.

GUYON You are saying though essentially that we have to kill some whales to ultimately save the whales?

GEOFFREY What I am saying is that we want fewer whales, many fewer whales killed than are being killed at the moment. Let's look at the facts, let's be realistic, let's not be emotional.

GUYON You’ve been emotional about this issue though in the past, I take you back to a speech on January 1, 2009, when you said and I quote you, there is no way that a whale can be killed humanely, often they suffer for a long time before they finally die after being harpooned, they often have to be harpooned twice, killing whales is not only unnecessary it is inhumane. I mean the critics are saying that this compromise stance is unethical and inhumane itself.

GEOFFREY The difficulty about the critics is that they have particular aims in this based on their NGO status, the NGOs are very useful on many aspects relating to whales, they know a lot about them, but the difficulty here is, that it's no use posturing and not producing actual results, the actual results are that increasing numbers of whales are being killed, and they are being killed many of them in the southern ocean in circumstances that gives rise to considerable disorder and soon life will be lost down there if this is not brought to an end.

GUYON Regarding that, what is your view on the actions of Peter Bethune and indeed the actions of the New Zealand government in saying that they are limited in actually helping him?

GEOFFREY Well it's very clear that the actions that have been taken are going to end up in the courts and they will end up in the courts of the flag state, in this instance Japan, and that’s a natural and probable consequence of what happened. There's nothing that the New Zealand government can do to stop that. It can allow consular representations to be made, it can ensure that he is treated properly and looked after, but it cannot stop the inexorable processes of the Japanese legal system, and it would be naïve to think that we could.

GUYON Just before we leave it, there's been a lot of talk about dysfunctionality of the Commission, corruption even with Japan buying votes at the Whaling Commission, is it a corrupt organisation?

GEOFFREY Well it depends how you mean on corruption, it's very difficult to say that anything that is occurring in that regard is absolutely forbidden by international law as things are. Quite a lot of nations help other nations to go to international meetings, and to say that you're going to ban that is a big step, and that has not been done. There are very grave difficulties in this organisation because of the very very wide differences of view. If the international organisation is to function effectively we have to try and bring those differences together and find some things we agree on and let the organisation function properly, otherwise it will be destroyed, and the destruction of it will lead to chaos for the whales.

GUYON Thank you very much for coming in and joining us this more Geoffrey Palmer, we appreciate your time.

ENDS

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