ニュース 2014/06/09 Kaieda holds press conference On June 9, DPJ President Banri Kaieda held his regular press conference at party headquarters. At the start of the presser, Kaieda commented on the passing away of Prince Katsura, the Emperor’s cousin, saying, “I can’t contain my deep sorrow. I would like to express my deep sympathy and condolences to the imperial household and members of his immediate family.” Kaieda referred to debate in the Diet, with only two weeks of the session remaining, and in particular to the closing session of the general deliberations in the Committee on Audit of the House of Councillors, which had taken earlier that same day. He said, “Two Diet members from the DPJ participated and clearly expressed our opposition to the Abe administration’s policies with regard to issues relating to national security and social security.” He added that many issues existed, including the way in which the Diet is involved in national security and the special secrets protection law, and issues relating to the worker dispatch law, and stated, “I would like these issues to be discussed thoroughly in the remainder of the session. Prime Minister’s Question Time will take place on June 11, and I would like to question the Prime Minister closely regarding such issues.” Following strong signals from the Prime Minister’s Office, Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, Norihisa Tamura has decided that the Government Pension Investment Fund should bring forward to this autumn its plans to revise its portfolio to increase the ratio of stock market investments in relation to government bonds, scheduled to be implemented next April. Kaieda commented on this, saying, “Pension funds are extremely precious funds that guarantee the future of the Japanese people after retirement, funds that have been built up from the sweat and blood of the Japanese people. We are clearly opposed to boosting the operation of such funds by shifting to high risk stocks.” Following Kaieda’s meetings with the leaders of Your Party and Yui no To on June 6, the first meeting between the secretaries general, Diet affairs chiefs and election campaign chiefs of the three parties was held on June 9, with a view to carrying out adjustments for candidates in various districts for the nationwide local elections next spring. On June 10, meetings will be held between the secretaries general and Diet Affairs Chairs of the DPJ and the Japan Restoration Party. Kaieda reported, “I am planning to hold meetings with the leaders of other parties [aside from Your Party and Yui no To], so I have entrusted the Secretary General with the task of laying the groundwork for such meetings.” Kaieda was asked for his feelings regarding the Prime Minister’s Question Time to be held on June 11. He responded, “This should take place more frequently, and so it is regrettable that it should take place with only ten days remaining of the Diet session and for that to be the end of it. In the Diet reforms it was decided that QT would take place once a month, and I believe that the appropriate way to go about things would be to question the Prime Minister’s stance in QT and then to go into this in more depth in the respective committees. It is regrettable that this cannot be realized this time, but I would like this to be a QT that will feed into the ongoing debate in this autumn’s Diet session and after.” Kaieda was also asked for his opinion regarding the Abe administration’s decision to include a policy of gradually reducing corporation tax rates in the “policy outline” to be approved by the Cabinet at the end of the month. He stated, “Lowering tax rates and tax reductions have to be considered in conjunction with what is to be done about the related tax revenues. One way of thinking might be that if corporation tax is reduced, the shortfall could be made up by making adjustments within corporation tax itself, but it would be unacceptable to return the rate of corporation tax on small and medium-sized businesses, reduced from 18% to 15% by the DPJ administration, to 18%.”