Environment Minister Peter Garrett unveiled the four-million-dollar (2.58-million US) programme on the eve of the whaling season in the Southern Ocean where Japanese whalers annually cull hundreds of the animals for scientific research.

"Australia does not believe that we need to kill whales to understand them," he told reporters in Sydney.

"Modern-day research uses genetic and molecular techniques as well as satellite tags, acoustic methods and aerial surveys rather than grenade-tipped harpoons," the former Midnight Oil rocker said.

Japan has conducted so-called scientific whaling since a moratorium on commercial hunting in 1986. The country kills hundreds of whales a year in the name of research, with the meat nonetheless ending up on dinner tables.

The funding for the Australian programme, part of a 6.15-million-dollar package of measures, will be used for research and scientific partnerships with other nations -- including Japan -- which will be invited to join the non-lethal research programme.

The package also includes money to develop commercial whale watching in the Pacific and an independent assessment of Japan's whaling programme.

Garrett said the Southern Ocean Research Partnership would be an international, multi-disciplinary research collaboration that would focus on using sophisticated scientific techniques to research whales.

"We want to see a scientifically driven engagement with these beautiful animals, not the large-scale targeting of these animals for killing so-called in the name of science," he said.

All International Whaling Commission (IWC) members had been encouraged to collaborate in the partnership, which conservation group Greenpeace said will expose the "farce" of Japan's whaling programme.

"My expectation is that the research programme and the research that is brought forward will be subject to proper peer review," Garrett said.

"Once that process is concluded that research will not only provide us with additional understanding about the best way to manage -- in a non-lethal way -- and understand whale populations, but also engage in the IWC reform process both in the working group and when the commission meets again (next year)."

Garrett said the Australian government had not yet decided whether to send a ship to shadow the Japanese fleet in the Southern Ocean after the whaling season kicks off in the coming weeks.

Canberra dispatched the customs vessel Oceanic Viking to document Japan's activities during the last whaling season.

"The government hasn't made a decision about whether there will be additional surveillance," Garrett said.

He said the government had used diplomatic engagement with Japan, appointed a whale envoy and had monitored the whaling fleet last season as part of its efforts to convince Japan not to engage in whaling.

Media reports here have said that Japan has set a target of killing 1,000 whales this season.

The Tokyo government argues that Western opponents of whaling, led by Australia, are insensitive to Japan's culture of whaling.

But few Japanese eat whale on a regular basis and surveys show that many young people are questioning the hunt.

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