Australia–Japan relations in 2013 with the new Abbott Government calling Japan Australia's "closest friend" in Asia, when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Australia to conclude the Japan–Australia Economic Partnership Agreement and to address the future of the relationship between Australia and Japan, being the first Japanese Prime Minister to address the Parliament of Australia. With the new Turnbull Government starting in 2015, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has made a few changes to the bilateral relationship between Australia and Japan. This included a slight pullback in terms of the recent bid for the upgrade of the Royal Australian Navy submarine fleet in
Whaling in Japan 15, 1976. Former president of the Japan Fisheries Association and former Director-General of the Japan Fisheries Agency, Iwao Fujita, became the first Managing Director by appointment. In April 1976, Shintaro Abe, the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, declared government support for the newly formed company. Nihon Kyodo Hogei Co. Ltd. was later renamed Kyodo Senpaku Co. Ltd. and merged with the Japan Whaling Association and Institute of Cetacean Research to create the modern Institute of Cetacean Research in 1987. In 1972, the United Nations Environmental Conference produced a 52–0 vote in favor of a 10-year global moratorium on commercial