Ady Gil

BACK in 2007, Kevin Rudd said that if we elected him as prime minister, he would stop the slaughter of whales.

And it wasn’t just earnest young lefties who took off their Save the Whales T-shirts and replaced them for a time with a red, white and blue Kevin 07 design.

No, Mr Rudd’s pledge to end ``commercial’’ whaling appealed across the political spectrum, young and old, progressive, conservative, as advancing technology meant Australians were bombarded with real-time images of dying whales writhing in agony as they were hauled at the end of a harpoon line through blood-stained seas.

And he was pretty clear about it too, our prime ministerial hopeful.

Continue reading "If Rudd kept his promise we wouldn’t need Sea Shepherd" »

Do you reckon if Sea Shepherd captain Paul Watson was roaming the streets of Melbourne in a high-tech armoured car deliberately provoking drug dealers and putting his young acolytes in harm’s way he’d be welcomed on to the national broadcaster to tout his particular brand of vigilantism? I doubt it.

We’re not big on vigilantes in this nation, which has an imperfect but workable system of the rule of law, enforced by publicly funded police. Yet for some reason the ridiculous antics currently under way off the tip of Antarctica are allowed to carry on unchecked, and have prompted a frenzy of boys-own-adventure cheering here at home.

Whomever is ultimately responsible for the sinking of the Ady Gil yesterday afternoon, it was highly irresponsible of the Sea Shepherd organisation to put the crew in such danger. But there was Mr Watson on the ABC this morning being hailed a hero for protecting the whales from the Japanese factory ships. He was also on Macquarie Radio, no doubt Fairfax radio, most TV stations and in every newspaper.

Continue reading "Sea Shepherd is going to get someone killed" »