By Michelle Grattan and Andrew Darby
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott says a Coalition government would not take international legal action against Japanese whaling - despite environment spokesman Greg Hunt urging the Rudd Government to do so immediately.
''Coalition policy is not to take Japan to the international court. We are against whaling, but we wouldn't seek to advance [the cause] in that particular way,'' Mr Abbott said yesterday.
He claimed this did not contradict Mr Hunt's calls for Environment Minister Peter Garrett to submit initial court documents by January 31.
''The Government should honour their policy [for legal action] - which we don't support - or change it,'' he said. Earlier he told Sydney radio that legal action ''is Kevin Rudd's policy, not the Coalition's policy''.
While the Coalition would like Japan to stop whaling, ''we don't want to needlessly antagonise our most important trading partner, a fellow democracy, an ally'', he said.
''There are limits to what you can reasonably do, and taking war-like action against Japan is not something that a sensible Australian politician ought to recommend.''
Mr Hunt said last night: ''Our policy is for them [the Government] to fulfil their policy.''
Mr Abbott's statement about Coalition policy repudiates Mr Hunt's undertaking last September that if Japan had not stopped whaling within a year of a Coalition government being elected, that government would act internationally.
Acting Foreign Minister Simon Crean played down Japan's criticism of acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard's handling of last week's confrontation in the Southern Ocean. Japan's Foreign Affairs Ministry reportedly told Australia it was not appropriate for Ms Gillard to urge whalers and protesters in equal terms to show restraint when the latter were conducting ''the unlawful rampage''.
Mr Crean said the reaction was not surprising ''given the robustness of the debates that we've had with Japan.'' He said Labor wanted to resolve differences with Japan through diplomacy rather than court action.