Whaling vote: Australia tells Japan it has lost argument for killings

Country's commissioner makes impassioned case against a business that no longer has a 'social licence'

There is no longer a "social licence" for countries to kill whales for profit, Australia has told the International Whaling Commission in Brazil.

In an impassioned intervention, Australia's IWC commissioner, Dr Nick Gales, told the key meeting that Japan's proposal to lift a 30-year ban on commercial whaling was a "business proposition" that Australians reject.