Australia's environment protection laws could be changed within weeks to require federal surveillance of Japan's whaling ships in the Southern Ocean.
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown has proposed a simple amendment to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, requiring a patrol vessel to monitor the activities of foreign whaling in the Australian Whale Sanctuary in Antarctic waters.
''I have sent it to the Opposition, and they are looking at it,'' Senator Brown said.
''I am very happy to talk about amendments or changes that they may wish to make [and] it certainly will pass the Senate.''
The proposed amendment to the EPBC Act will be introduced when Parliament resumes sitting next month, and if passed, could become law within two months.
''It would be too late to affect Japan's whale slaughter this year, but it will show Tokyo that Australia takes whale protection seriously,'' Senator Brown said.
Earlier this week, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott called for Australia to send a Customs vessel to ''keep peace'' in the Southern Ocean, after three West Australian conservation activists boarded the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru No2 off the coast of Bunbury.
Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt has also called for federal surveillance of Japan's whaling fleet, after the Yushin Maru II entered Australian waters off Macquarie Island.
''We have whalers in world heritage areas and a Government that's run up the white flag. What must happen now is what we've always said: there's a conflict at sea, there's a dispute between parties, there should be an Australian Customs vessel in the Southern Ocean, precisely to do its job of protecting Australian sovereignty and Australian waters,'' Mr Hunt said.
But the Gillard Government has ruled out Senator Brown's proposal, saying a patrol vessel was sent to the Southern Ocean four years ago to gather evidence for Australia's application to the International Court of Justice against Japan's whaling fleet.
''We don't need to do it again,'' Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said.
Meanwhile, a group of United States academics has suggested a system of ''tradeable quotas'' that would allow member nations of the International Whaling Commission to buy whales in a manner similar to carbon credits.
In a letter published in the global science journal Nature, they argue a quota system would allow anti-whaling nations to ''purchase whales'' to save them, while allowing whaling nations such as Japan, Norway and Iceland to profit from the animals without killing them.
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