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On March 19, the Chair of the DPJ Caucus in the House of Councillors, Azuma Koshiishi, held his regular press conference, and revealed the stance to be taken by the DPJ caucus in the Upper House regarding the budget proposal for fiscal 2009.
At the beginning of the press conference, Koshiishi expressed his reservations regarding headlines in certain newspapers that state “Twisted Diet Transformed into Becalmed Diet”. He stressed that this Diet session was not becalmed, saying “[The headlines] may imply that compared to the situation surrounding the abolition of provisional tax rates this time last year, this year is quiet, but that is not the case. If you look at today’s debate in the Committee on Budget, it is clear that the question of “politics and religion” is one problem to be solved by this Diet session, and these were the first exchanges in this debate.”
Koshiishi went on to comment on voting on the budget for fiscal 2009 and related legislation, revealing that the DPJ was considering holding a joint committee of both houses regarding this issue in saying, “We can’t just allow [the legislation] to be made law automatically. In order that the DPJ caucus can register their opposition clearly, we will hold a vote by March 27th [the legislation would automatically become law after this date]. Provided that nothing out of the ordinary intervenes, we will also vote on the related legislation before the end of this current fiscal year.”
Koshiishi emphasised, “We will not deliberately extend the joint committee of both houses as a delaying tactic. The committee is a forum for debate, to decide what to do when the opinions of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors differ. Therefore, we don’t know how long it will take until it is in progress. We haven’t got a particular time frame or number of days in mind from the word go.”
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