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On August 21, DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama spoke at a gathering in Kagoshima city, calling on an audience of approximately 800 people to bring about a change of government in order to realise the governance carried out by politicians called for by the Japanese people.
Hatoyama said he was unable to understand the logic in pumping 11.7 billion yen of taxpayers’ money into an anime and manga museum, while at the same time abolishing the supplementary living assistance provided to single mothers, saying, “However you look at it, surely it makes sense to prioritise the use of tax money for nurturing human lives.” He went on, “It is symptomatic of the current party of government that this kind of normal politics has disappeared.”
Regarding the circumstances behind this phenomenon, Hatoyama stressed, “Under the structure of collusion between politicians, bureaucrats and business, bureaucrats work in order to protect their own position. We are in a situation where bureaucratic amakudari (golden parachuting) has become a normal state of affairs.” He once more explained that 12 trillion yen of tax money was being pumped each year into organisations that receive parachuting bureaucrats, and expressed the opinion that “It seems obvious that not all of this can be described as beneficial.”
Furthermore, Hatoyama stressed, “That is why the DPJ, in order to save everyone’s lives, would like to totally eliminate waste, and conduct politics that values people’s lives. If we become the party of government, we would like to carry out politics that would use tax money on policies that are more important to the people.”
At the same time, Hatoyama announced that the DPJ would tackle the issue of the pension system as a national-level project, and use political power to create a pension system that would enable everyone to live in security even in old age. He also proclaimed that Japan should not be a society where people decided not to have children for economic reasons, and said that the DPJ would support the childrearing generation by establishing a child allowance, and transform Japan into a nation where society as a whole supports childrearing.
Furthermore, Hatoyama stressed that the DPJ wanted to support primary industry which served to protect food safety and the environment and would engineer a shift to policies where the national government supports those involved in primary industry by implementing an individual household income support system.
Hatoyama went on to say that “Current politics does not always fulfil the expectations of the Japanese public.” He stressed that a two-party system of government was necessary in order to realise the kind of politics that the people were calling for, and emphasised, “If the DPJ does not fulfil your expectations, then you are welcome to crush us the next time round.” He called on the Japanese people to realise a mode of governance in which the public would play a leading role, examining policies and choosing a government. The resounding cheers from the audience in response to this call echoed around the venue.
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