THE Federal Opposition has called on the Rudd Government to tackle Japan about alleged vote-buying in the International Whaling Commission following the recruitment of strife-torn Eritrea to the organisation.

Eritrea joins Tanzania and the Republic of Congo as recent members of the 82-nation IWC.

All three African countries joined talks in Tokyo in March, which a Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement said then were aimed at "obtaining understanding for Japan's position on sustainable whaling".

The Opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, said IWC vote buying was unacceptable.

"Mr Rudd should take the issue of vote buying directly to the Japanese," he said yesterday. "His concern about whaling appears to have evaporated from the day he became Prime Minister."

A spokesman for the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, said Australia would welcome the opportunity to meet new IWC member countries and discuss recent developments in cetacean science.

Eritrea is a single-party state accused by neighbouring Ethiopia this month of training and arming terrorists. It is ranked 157th out of 177 nations in the UN Human Development Index and 126th on Transparency International's Global Corruption Index.

"We do not know their views on whales, or why a small, desperately poor country, where 80 per cent of the population is involved in farming and herding, would want to join the IWC, although it is not hard to guess" said John Frizell, of Greenpeace International.

Meanwhile there is little evidence that an attempt to find a consensus on the future of the IWC is progressing. A meeting of inner-circle IWC nations, including Australia, in Florida is understood to have developed a list of divisive issues for further meetings to consider.