Rock star Aussie minister off-key on whales: Japanese official (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) - In the days when Australias environment minister was a rock star and Japans whaling chief was a student, they sang from the same songbook -- but not any more.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett, former frontman for protest rockers Midnight Oil, now leads Australias attempts to force Japan to end its whaling programme.

The chief of whaling at Japans Fisheries Agency, Hideki Moronuki, leads the defence -- and he says Garrett has lost a fan.

"When I was a high-school student I used to listen to Midnight Oil. When I was a high-school student I liked his music. Now I dont," Moronuki told the Australian Associated Press.

Garrett was less diplomatic than previous Australian environment ministers and more aggressive, he said in a telephone interview from Tokyo.

"Previous ministers take into account the political situation but minister Garrett is very, very direct."

Moronuki scoffed at Garretts proposal to reform the International Whaling Commission, calling it "quite ridiculous."

Garrett wants to close a loophole in an international moratorium on whaling that allows Japan to kill the giants of the seas in the name of research.

Australia is a leading opponent of Japans annual hunt in Antarctic waters, which this year is targeting 1,000 whales.

The government sent a customs vessel into the Southern Ocean in January to track the whalers and collect evidence for a possible international court action to stop the killing.

Photographs of harpooned whales being dragged aboard a Japanese ship were later published in Australian newspapers and described by Garrett as sickening.