Australia must pursue legal action against Japan to stop the hunting of whales, the opposition says.
With the Japanese fleet on its way to Antarctica with plans to kill about 1,000 whales, the opposition wants to know what has happened to the government's threat to take legal action.
Labor last year threatened to take Japan to the International Court of Justice.
But no legal action has been launched, and opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said it was a "slap in the face" to Australians.
"As far as broken election promises go, this is a whopper," Mr Hunt said.
"This is a whale of a broken promise."
Mr Hunt asked Environment Minister Peter Garrett in parliament today when the government would make good on its promise to take legal action.
Mr Garrett responded by saying Labor had only promised to consider taking legal action.
"The clear commitment that the government made was to give careful and serious consideration to the options for potential legal action against Japan's Antarctic whale program," he said.
Australia will not send a ship to trail the Japanese whaling fleet this summer after last season sending a Customs ship to gather evidence for possible legal action.
Mr Garrett said authorities had carefully analysed that evidence.
The government was strongly opposed to whaling and had announced plans to spend $6 million on non-lethal whaling research and other conservation programs.
