Peter Garrett MP
Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage

Gleebooks, Sydney

E & EO Proof only. Check against delivery

It is a great pleasure to launch a new book from a talented Australian writer, under the imprint of an independent Australian publisher, and in one of Australia’s finest bookstores.

Now Andrew Darby is quite a remarkable bloke. With Harpoon he’s created  an enthralling work, executed with precise, evocative prose permeated with the accumulated insights as befits one of Australia’s most seasoned, committed and informed journalists.
 
Remarkable because some years ago now, he carved out a notable and important niche – and at the same time an enviably bucolic and pretty peaceful existence – as the correspondent in Tasmania for leading mainland newspapers. Simply put, he is one of Australia’s most substantive journalists and he’s now produced a substantive book.

He’s experienced some personal sadness lately, and he should be very proud of and buoyed to the greatest extent possible by his achievement in writing this book and having it launched here today.

Harpoon cuts through an issue which is contested with understandable passion, sometimes reckless divisiveness, and a surplus of often very deliberate misinformation.

In the international debate over whaling, you would be hard pressed to find a work more thoughtfully researched and informed as Harpoon: Into The Heart of Whaling, which traces industrial whaling from its harsh beginnings, through the ‘gold rush’ fever as whaling stations dotted our coastlines and into the era of navy-style factory fleets which by late last century left these extraordinary and beautiful creatures on the brink of extinction.

The history, the characters, the names we’ve come to be familiar in this issue; are all here.

The turbulent machinations of the International Whaling Commission, the endeavours of a whole community made up of environmentalists, Greenpeace activists and scientists to alert the world to the fate of hunted whales, the activities of filmmakers, diplomats, and politicians drawn into the debate - even Migaloo - all make up this epic story.

Notably, and I judge this as one of Andrew’s distinctive achievements, Harpoon provides equal insights into the cultures of whalers and anti-whalers, from those firing the grenade-tipped harpoons to those braving Antarctic waters in rubber dinghies.

And throughout, this account is fed by first-rate scholarship and journalism, driven by a genuine commitment and feeling for its subject – for whales and their environment – for our environment.

In his interviews with Australian and Japanese harpoon gunners, with officials and with activists, and in his delving into historical archives, the author manages to shine the proverbial light on the vexed history of whaling, a history still very much alive and contested in 2007.

One of the strong currents that runs through Harpoon is described thus; “If lies were repeated often enough, perhaps they would be accepted as truth.”

Here it’s words like ‘normalisation’ and ‘sampling’ which cascade through the debate, and of course ‘scientific-whaling’ – the charade of slaughtering whales for research, which will see a massive escalation in the number of whales killed in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in the forthcoming whaling season.

As many of you here would know, these words have been at the core of the disagreement that has gridlocked the International Whaling Commission for years.

Now, regrettably, Japan has announced a planned scientific slaughter of over 900 Antarctic minke whales, 50 fin whales and also 50 humpback whales; for the first time these playful giant jumpers of the sea, the mainstay of Australia’s $300 million whale-watching industry, will be targeted.

These plans remain unchanged, despite a great deal of diplomatic activity and negotiation at this year’s IWC meeting in Alaska – the “line of least resistance” so forensically analysed in ‘Harpoon’.

It’s all part of business as usual at the Commission which has passed more than 40 separate resolutions condemning the sham of scientific whaling, every one of them ignored.

The anti-whaling cause requires a circuit-breaker, and that’s where the publication of Harpoon at this time is so important.

Andrew Darby describes in detail the methods employed to kill whales, from the earliest, primitive blades and harpoons to the use of sonar and the mechanised factory ships, penthrite grenade-tipped harpoons and electric lances.

These are details of chaotic events that unfold on the high-seas, often away from public scrutiny and judgment. When whaling is subjected to the public glare, the rules of engagement can change greatly.

Harpoon takes us to the beginnings of the anti-whaling movement, to the first Greenpeace inflatables that intervened between the Soviet whaling fleet and their prey in 1975.

That encounter broke as world news, and when Greenpeace’s footage later ran on the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite, the international pressure put on the Soviet and Japanese IWC delegations was immense.

Time and time again, we’ve seen the power of reporting to galvanise public opinion against the reality of whaling. Thirty years after that first encounter, Greenpeace footage turned a tide of sentiment against the Japanese whaling hunt in 2005-06. As Andrew describes it:

“As never before, they showed how little death had changed for whales in a century. Whales might be killed instantly, or endure an agonising demise.”

So in Harpoon we have a work which makes a substantial contribution to this history of public scrutiny – of informed debate – gathering momentum to the anti-whaling cause.

And now there is a new urgency to the anti-whaling cause.

The expanded Japanese hunt planned for later this year will not only damage populations of these creatures that have barely recovered from the ravages of last century, but will also put at risk Australia’s growing and valuable whale-watching industry.

Labor recognises the need for a circuit breaker in the fight against whaling. Earlier this year, we called for a fresh approach, an approach that recognises business as usual at the IWC is taking us backwards.

We’ve called for serious commitment to a range of legal options, pulling out all stops in the international courts to end the slaughter of whales.

We’ve called for formal representations to the Japanese authorities – at bilateral and multilateral meetings, not just the IWC – about its practice of whaling.

Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Robert McClelland has also recently called for the Prime Minister to raise the issue during an informal breakfast with US President George W Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the forthcoming APEC Summit.

Crucially, a Labor Government will also monitor the activities of Japanese whalers in our Antarctic backyard waters. At the moment, we take the whalers’ word for what happens in the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

Monitoring whalers off Antarctica will help expose the “scientific” sham for what it is. Like Harpoon, and like much of the work Andrew Darby has undertaken throughout his career, it will also draw global attention to these barbaric practices.

There can be few greater tasks for an accomplished journalist, researcher and writer than to shed light on some of the darker places in our history, cautioning us our environment is not a limitless resource, and helping us realise there is more wonder in one magnificent living whale than any number of harpoons.

Andrew has applied himself to that task and produced a work of what I know will be lasting value.

So it is with real personal admiration and pleasure that I launch Andrew Darby’s book Harpoon.

[Ends]