(Corrects grandfather's name in 7th para to Nobusuke Kishi)

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA, May 29 (Reuters) - Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set for a rocky appearance before Australia's parliament with war veterans on Tuesday calling for an apology over Japanese war crimes and environmentalists demanding an end to whaling.

Abe, under pressure at home over pension payments and the suicide of the country's agriculture minister, will be the first Japanese leader to address Australia's parliament following a September meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Sydney.

But Australia's biggest veterans group, the 200,000-strong Returned and Services League (RSL), said World War Two veterans would be expecting an olive branch from Abe over Japan's wartime record in his speech to both the lower house and upper houses.

"We must understand, appreciate and respect there are some people who suffered first hand the horrors of Japan's treatment during the Second World War, who continue to harbour concerns," RSL President Bill Crews told Reuters.

"In the light of Mr Abe's recent comments about comfort women, it will be an opportunity for him to clear the air."

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard, who signed a security agreement in Tokyo in March deepening defence ties between Australia and Japan, told parliament that Abe's address to a rare joint sitting of the parliament was "entirely appropriate".

Abe's maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, in 1957 became the first post-war Japanese Prime Minister to visit Australia, where he expressed "profound regret" over Japan's war record and laid the foundation for Australia's second largest trade relationship.

Abe, 52, the youngest Japanese prime minister since World War Two, was also expected to visit the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, where the country's ambassador laid a wreath in 2005.

But Abe earlier this year upset women compelled to work as sex slaves in World War Two Japanese military brothels, insisting there were no official records of state involvement.

Adelaide woman Jan Ruff O'Herne, 84, a former "comfort woman", told Australian newspapers that Abe's planned September 11 speech would be a good opportunity for him to apologise.

And with Tokyo clashing with anti-whaling nations in Alaska, Greenpeace Australia chief executive officer Steve Shallhorn said Abe should use his address to announce an end to Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.

Abe's address will come a day ahead of a speech by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as well as official visits by U.S. President George W. Bush, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao spaced around the three-day APEC summit.

Howard, slumping in polls ahead of an election expected in November, is likely to use the visits to try and boost his standing and international credentials with voters.

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