Send minister to save the whales: Labor

The government needs to send its environment minister to an international meeting on whaling, Labor says, or risk seeing commercial whaling resume.

The government needs to be in the room if it wants to stop a Japanese push to lift a decades-long ban on commercial whaling, Labor says.

The opposition is maintaining its call for the coalition to send Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg to attend the International Whaling Commission meeting in September in order to shoot down Japan's proposal.

"There is nothing scientific about harpooning a whale, chopping it up and putting it on a plate to eat," Labor Environment spokesman Tony Burke said late on Friday.

"The government's words yesterday have little effect if they won't turn up and oppose the proposal on commercial whaling by Japan."

Both Labor and the coalition oppose Japan's proposal to lift the moratorium, as well as its continued advocacy of "scientific whaling."

In the last two years 660 whales have been slaughtered in the Southern Ocean as part of Japan's ongoing scientific whaling program.

"The moratorium on commercial whaling is a critical piece of environmental reform," Mr Burke said.

"It needs to be upheld rather than undermined. Any proposal to undermine it needs to be opposed."

Labor claims if Mr Frydenberg fails to attend, he risks seeing the re-introduction of commercial whaling.

On Thursday, Mr Frydenberg said Australia and Japan shared deep bilateral ties, but disagreed when it came to whaling.

"Australia will be calling on like-minded nations to reject Japan's proposal," he said in a joint statement with Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop.

"The science is clear, you do not need to kill whales in order to study them."