A cluster-free Australia may still fail to uphold the prohibition bill. The Australian government faces a moral dilemma. To implement legislation in line with the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which it continues to boast it was the 'first to sign' (the perks of being a nation beginning with the letter 'a'), or to bow down to US pressure and pass a watered-down bill allowing Australian defence forces to support US cluster munitions military operations.
The Native Title Act 1993 (NTA) was passed with substantially weaker property rights than the preceding Commonwealth land rights laws legislated in 1976. The government made the political argument that this compromise was necessary for passage through parliament.
It has become commonly accepted in the West that the fight against Japanese scientific whaling is an honorable cause - a battle fought in fear of the extinction of a much-loved species. However, the West, in its staunch defence of the whale, refuses to acknowledge the possible viability of sustainable commercial whaling - a passionate position that has spawned the vehement condemnation of Japan's whaling ambitions and accusations that scientific whaling research is a fraud.
