New Zealand will not be joining Australian legal action against Japan over whaling in the Southern Ocean until diplomatic avenues are exhausted, Prime Minister John Key and Foreign Minister Murray McCully say.
Today the Australian federal government said it would initiate the action in the International Court of Justice in The Hague next week.
The decision, announced jointly by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Environment Minister Peter Garrett, comes five months ahead of a deadline the government set to determine an agreement with Japan over whaling in the Southern Ocean.
Mr Smith dismissed suggestions the announcement was a tactic to lift the government's standing in the opinion polls ahead of an election, likely later this year.
New Zealand's position has been to try make progress through the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
Prime Minister John Key today said the position had not changed.
"From New Zealand's perspective we want to continue to go down the diplomatic route," he told reporters.
"We believe that's the best way of seeing a reduction and the elimination of whaling. If the diplomatic route is unsuccessful then we will make a decision about whether to join Australia."
Foreign Minister Murray McCully said the decision would be made in the next few weeks.
"New Zealand has been disappointed by the progress of diplomatic negotiations in the International Whaling Commission (IWC), and we have made it clear that the current proposal is not adequate," Mr McCully said.
"However we believe that there is still room to make progress before the IWC's annual meeting in Agadir (in Morocco) in June. The Government has always said that action in the ICJ remains an option for New Zealand if the diplomatic process fails."
Mr Key said only when diplomatic avenues were extinguished would New Zealand go to court and he said progress was still possible through the IWC.
New Zealand's representative to the IWC, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, recently said using the body could see an agreement where more whales would be saved, while taking a case to the ICJ could be counterproductive.
"We regard that as a very uncertain proposition ... and if that case were lost the situation would be worse than it is now."
Mr Key said Sir Geoffrey would continue as negotiator.
"If we thought a court case was clear cut and easy to win then obviously that might be the fastest way to do that but the advice we have had is it's actually not.
"That doesn't mean we wouldn't join Australia if the diplomatic solution had been extinguished, we may well do that."
Australia had not asked New Zealand to join it in its bid but the countries' foreign ministers talked about the move last night.
Recently IWC nations met to talk about a proposal to allow Japan, Norway and Iceland to openly hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, but aim to reduce the total catch over the next 10 years.
Japan currently uses a loophole to kill whales saying it is for scientific research while the other countries are not bound by the moratorium as they did not agree to it.
Australia has ruled out backing the compromise saying all whaling in the Southern Ocean should be phased out within five years. New Zealand has said the initial figures for whales to be killed were far too high.
