Australia rejects whaling compromise

Australia rejects an international compromise that would allow Japan to kill more whales near its shores in exchange for limiting its Antarctic hunts, Environment Minister Peter Garrett said Tuesday.

"The government does not share this position that's being advanced," Garrett told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

International Whaling Commission (IWC) chairman William Hogarth reportedly raised the trade-off idea in closed-door talks with other member nations ahead of a meeting of the commision due in March.

Japan kills more than 800 whales a year in Antarctic waters in the name of scientific research, which is allowed under the IWC's 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling.

But most of the meat ends up on dinner tables, and Australia and other anti-whaling nations accuse Tokyo of using research as a pretext for commercial hunting of the giant mammals.

"At the end of the day Australia's position hasn't changed," Garrett said.

"We're committed, absolutely, to bringing about an end to so-called scientific whaling and we remain implacably opposed to commercial whaling."

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said a "range of possible suggestions and proposals" had been canvassed at the IWC.

"But they're a long way from any formal proposal or formal suggestion, or anything that the Australian government has agreed to," he said.

"Our priority remains Japan ceasing whaling in the great southern oceans, and our overall objective is for whaling to end completely."

Any formal proposal would need to be brought before an interim meeting of the IWC in March and there remains "plenty of water to flow under the bridge between now and then", Smith said.

IWC meetings have for years been passionate showdowns pitting Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture and is supported by a few other countries, against Australia and other Western nations.

Hogarth, who steps down after the annual IWC meeting in Madeira in June, persuaded Japan to stay with the commission and to freeze plans to expand its slaughter to humpback whales, which are a popular tourist attraction in Australia.

Last week Japan's top whaling negotiator Joji Morishita praised Hogarth's role and warned that the IWC could collapse if the Madeira meeting fails to reach an agreement.