Darkness is starting to touch the Blue Ice Runway some 70 kilometres from Casey Station and farce is circling the great Japanese whaler chase which by now would supposedly be using the small Airbus that was meant to be making regular supply flights from Hobart.

Sure, the sun will be above the horizon for 22 hours 15 minutes today, but tomorrow daylight will be 11 minutes 56 seconds shorter, and the day after that, closer to 30 minutes shorter.

Day after shrinking day the amazingly rapid onset of polar night is overtaking the Rudd Government’s pursuit of global leadership in whaling criticism.

This darkness is also fast approaching the jet strip that was provisionally scheduled to have taken four flights by now, even before the government decided the uncertified Antarctic Division aircraft would also buzz the Japanese at low altitudes.

All while the floating sushi factory masquerading as scientific research kills hundreds of whales in defiance of the near universal condemnation of the atrocity to which Australia claimed leadership mid December by announcing sea surveillance by a ship, the Oceanic Viking, which hasn’t yet sailed south, and a jet that isn’t even cleared to carry out its intended mission.

So far there has been no accountability for this multi-faceted stuff up.

The blue ice runway is a technical masterpiece. The preparations for the supply missions have taken eight diligent and exhaustive years, with the jet making its a first proving flight to Wilkins a month ago.

CASA has been meticulous in ensuring the flights conform to the very tough rules for the operation of twin engined jets covering long distances over remote routes, called ETOPS 180, but so far, inexplicably, the jet hasn’t received the final approval that the safety regulator officially expected to give on December 18.

And now, because the government seems unwilling to use any of the 18 RAAF Orion maritime reconnaissance turbo-props that could monitor the whalers for weeks on end, CASA approval is also being waited for ad hoc (and useless) fly overs by a passenger jet never intended for such a role.

Make that 19 Orions. There is a super “unsecret” special electronic intelligence aircraft in that fleet which might and may even have already been used in order to locate the whalers, or at least intercept all of its communications.

But it might also be somewhere in the Middle East. The RAAF never discusses Orion 19.

There has been no response as yet from Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, as to whether the Orions — which can loiter safely over the Japanese for up to three hours with two of their four engines shut down, and have a full suite of evidence gathering devices — will carry out the surveillance that is beyond the civilian Airbus.

The unreadiness of the Airbus has already seen the whale census mission the government announced almost a month ago cancelled.

The last supply flight of the jet to Casey is scheduled for February 14. Will it make any by then? Can the Oceanic Viking tag the whalers for the intended 20 days?

Policy initiatives often run late. But in the polar wastes they also run out of daylight.