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On August 10, eight pieces of legislation for the comprehensive reform of social security and taxation systems were approved and enacted at the plenary session of the House of Councillors with a majority vote by the Diet members of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and New Komeito. The eight proposals are as follows: a proposal to strengthen the functions of the national pension system (Submitted by Government, revised by the House of Representatives. Hereinafter, legislation was approved under the same conditions it was submitted unless otherwise specified); a proposal to integrate employee pension schemes; a proposal to promote the reform of the social security system (submitted jointly by the DPJ, LDP and New Komeito to the House of Representatives); a proposal to assist children and support child raising activities; a proposal to develop further legislation; a proposal to revise legislation relating to authorized childcare facilities (nintei-kodomo-en) (submitted jointly by the aforementioned three parties to the House of Representatives); a proposal to revise the Consumption Tax Act; and a proposal to revise the Local Tax Act and Local Allocation Tax Act.
Prior to the vote, Chair of the Special Committee of the House of Councillors on the Comprehensive Reform of Social Security and Taxation Systems Chiaki Takahashi explained the process and outcome of the 85-hour deliberation in the Committee. After that, Member of the House of Councillors Tsutomu Okubo stated, “The Government should be praised highly for making an important political decision on these significant issues, as work on these can no longer be postponed, and especially in the face of split public opinion and a twisted Diet.” Okubo called on Diet members to approve the legislation, explaining that it would lead to the achievement of four important goals. First, he explained that the legislation’s approval would help to establish a National Commission to listen the voice of the people to create a new social security system that the public can sufficiently understand and accept. Second, he stated that the approval would stabilize financial resources for the national treasury, and enable the government to permanently pay half of the amount needed for basic pensions in order to strengthen the system for ensuring minimum social security measures, including an increase in the amount of basic pension provided to those with low incomes, the extension of employee pension plans to part-time workers, and the elimination of gaps in the amount of pension provided to public and private sector workers through a unification of pension programs. Third, he argued that an approval would cause the investment of funds from stabilized financial resources into child-rearing support measures, such as those to make further responses to requests on the elimination of waiting lists at childcare facilities by allowing for an increase in the number of facilities without sacrificing the quality of services. Fourth, he stated that an approval would help improve social security while also creating a structure in which the entirety of society shares the burden of payment equally, a matter which he argued the Japanese Government must act upon.
At a press conference following the enactment of the aforementioned legislation, Secretary General Azuma Koshiishi commented, “Through meticulous deliberation taking more than 200 hours in total in the both Houses, we have successfully addressed a historical and inescapable issue. We have finally achieved this with the leadership of Prime Minister Noda and the cooperation of the LDP and New Komeito. I appreciate the efforts of my fellow DPJ members who worked so hard to reach this moment.”
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