Mr HARDGRAVE (1:03 PM) —The Alaskan Eskimos have been whaling for many years, since about 1500 BC, and most quotas allocated by the International Whaling Commission do not seem to cause any major problems, although I suspect that many of us in this place and many of our constituents do not understand the need for any whales to be taken anywhere in the world these days.

After all, Australia has been a good international citizen and has walked away from the whaling industry. We do not have any aboriginal demands on whales as some other cultures do. So it is from those sorts of positions, I suspect, that we are quite generous in tolerating some cultures having a different way of doing things. The Alaskan Eskimos, the Inuits and the traditional tribes in those areas—as the member for Lyons and the member for Wentworth have outlined—have a legitimate demand.

However, when it comes to the circumstances of the Bequian people of St Vincent and the Grenadines, the committee had some concerns. In essence what we are actually talking about is one old whaler who was running a practice of taking at one stage three whales a year, then more recently under this new quota, two whales a year, a practice that was destined to die out essentially when he died out, but his nephew has now taken up the cause.

The treaty matters that we have before us in this report, Report 23—Amendments proposed to the International Whaling Convention, are not going to be protested in a formal sense by the committee, but we think through the course of this debate, and also in the report, we have at least placed on notice the importance of having another look at this whole matter. Of course, Australia is well placed to play a lead role in a review of these matters because the 52nd annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission is taking place in Australia in Adelaide next year. It is certainly an opportunity that will be used to begin the process of revising the convention and its schedule and, more importantly in the context of the quota for the Bequians, we have also recommended in our report that this quota should be reconsidered at that meeting. It would have been easy to recommend lodging an objection to this proposed amendment to the schedule for the convention, but we believe that that essentially would have had little effect and have recommended an expression of concern be lodged about the renewal of this quota.

Most Australians would support the committee on this matter. The renewing of the quota for the Bequians could have a very undesirable effect in that other less scrupulous groups could be emboldened by this unfortunate precedent to make claims for their own traditional whaling. Such moves could be used as a means of getting around the moratorium on commercial whaling introduced in 1986. The moratorium is supported by many nations and peoples and seems to have assisted in the recovery of the numbers of some stocks of whales. We believe that many Australians are revolted by whale hunts and are in favour of reducing them as much as possible.

We do not as a committee—and I suspect the parliament and the people of Australia would agree with the committee's views—want an extension of whaling by using aboriginal subsistence or other loopholes in the convention to actually see the light of day. The whole matter is very distressing and is certainly one of the key reasons why we have moved for a review of the schedule of the convention, particularly in relation to the Bequian people.

We are very concerned that the aboriginal subsistence definition adopted by the Whaling Commission in the 1980s is going to be used and could be used by others around the world. The particular definitions have not been incorporated into the convention or the schedule and have no real application in international law. I suspect on first brush, when one sees the words `aboriginal subsistence whaling', one may feel a bit of pressure to not dare question another culture's rights to continue to do the things that that particular culture has always done. I think that is fair enough in one sense, but it is also important in the democracy that we have in this nation that we at least debate the issue and raise our concern based on our standards and our approach to this particular industry.

The Bequian people, the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines—essentially one old whaler and now his nephew—are using that loophole to take just two whales a year. It is not that quota, it is not the numbers of whales that have been taken over the years; it is the principle and the precedent that we believe are important and are at stake. I commend the 23rd report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties to the House.