Australia could send a Customs' patrol vessel to the Southern Ocean if Japan decides to resume whaling this summer, parliament has been told.
RELATED READING:
Australia criticises Japan's whaling resumption
Attorney-General George Brandis says Australia is "very disappointed" Japan has decided to resume whaling and has taken the matter up at "the highest levels" in a bid to get Japan to change its mind.
Japan will dispatch a "research" whaling mission to the Antarctic Ocean tomorrow.
"The research ships will depart for new whale research in the Antarctic on December 1, 2015," the Fisheries Agency said today in a statement on its website.
The move is in defiance of international criticism and despite a UN legal decision that such activity disguises commercial hunts.
Tokyo has for years come under intense global pressure to stop hunts that opponents decry as inhumane but that Japan says are an inherent part of its traditional culture.
If diplomatic representations aren't successful, the government will consider sending a Customs' patrol vessel to the Southern Ocean, Senator Brandis told the Senate on Monday.
RELATED READING:
Japan to resume whaling in the Antarctic
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said Japan's actions were an outrage and should be condemned.
It was an affront to the international rule of law and to Australia, which for 20 years sought to end Japanese whaling through diplomacy, he said.
"Labor calls on the Turnbull government to bring all pressure to bear on Japan to renounce this irresponsible and illegal course of action," Mr Dreyfus told parliament.
