"It's a civilian issue. We don't see an Australian military role," Defence Minister Robert Hill told reporters after each side in the dispute accused the other of deliberately causing a high-seas collision.

"Our attitude is that peaceful protest is one thing. However, we don't condone any form of violent activity on any side," said Hill, who was responding to calls for a navy patrol boat to be sent to the area.

The tensions between the Japanese whalers and Greenpeace activists have been inflamed by a claim by another group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, that it did deliberately sideswipe one of the Japanese ships.

Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat, said in a website posting that he had collided with a Japanese supply ship after "ordering" it to leave the hunting grounds on Sunday.

"I informed the Oriental Bluebird that I was acting under the authority of the United Nations World Charter for Nature to uphold international conservation regulations prohibiting the slaughter of whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary," Watson said.

"When they refused, we backed up the message by slamming our starboard hull against their starboard hull.

"There was no damage apparent to either ship aside from a long scratch along the hull of the Oriental Bluebird caused by a device attached to the Farley Mowats hull called the 'can opener,'" he said.

Watson, a founder member of Greenpeace, left the organisation in 1977 after disagreements over tactics and has taken a more aggressive approach with Sea Shepherd.

His claim is in sharp contrast to the reactions of the Japanese and Greenpeace to a collision Sunday between two of their ships, the Nisshin Maru and the Arctic Sunrise, with each saying the other was at fault.

The Japanese whaling authority, the Institute of Cetacean Research, has called on Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd to "stop at once their dangerous and criminal actions."

The Arctic Sunrise and another Greenpeace ship, Esperanza, have been shadowing the Japanese whaling fleet since December 21, attempting to disrupt the hunt by putting activists in small inflatables between the harpooners and the whales.

The International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986 but Japan has continued hunting for what it calls scientific research -- a claim rejected by critics.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.