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On March 10, DPJ President Banri Kaieda held his regular press conference at party headquarters. He referred to the ongoing response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, the third anniversary of which would fall on the following day, March 11, and vowed that the DPJ would continue to make every effort in this respect, in the same way as it did when it was the party in power.
At the start of the press conference, Kaieda stated, “Tomorrow will be the third March 11 since we experienced the terrible disaster of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear accident. I would like to express my deep condolences on the passing of the many people who lost their lives in the disaster and its aftermath. In addition I would like to extend my sincere sympathy to the many evacuees who are still even now enduring a live of exile.” He went on, “The Democratic Party of Japan was the party of government at the time of the disaster, and I would like us to continue to uphold our pledge made to the Japanese people at the time that there would be no revitalisation of Japan without the recovery of Fukushima.”
Kaieda went on to say, “To this end, even though we are now an opposition party, I would like us to cooperate with the ruling parties and continue to promote efforts in various fields.” He announced that he had held discussions with the heads of 12 municipalities located within Fukushima prefecture during the DPJ’s annual convention, which had been held in Koriyama city in February, and had listened to their requests and issues. Kaieda said, “During these discussions, one issue was that the delay in decontamination, in particular the fact that the decontamination effort, which the state is supposed to be engaging in directly, had in fact been left to subcontractors, and was not making progress. I heard calls for the state to come forward and get actively involved in undertaking decontamination as soon as possible.” Kaieda went on to point out various issues, saying, “Prime Minister Abe sent the message to the world that the issue of decontaminated water at Fukushima No 1 was ‘under control’, but in fact the current situation is that things are very far from being under control. The government should also be actively leading such efforts.” He also added, “We need to revise the Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage in relation to the issue of decommissioning of nuclear reactors, and on February 26 we issued a petition to the government urging them to considering formulated an Act on Nuclear Damage and a Nuclear Decommissioning Institute based on the DPJ’s proposal for a Nuclear Decommissioning Institute. We will all exert pressure on the government so that they undertake such revisions as soon as possible.”
Kaieda also touched on the need for special legislation to deal with the situation in which land appropriation was being delayed due to the complicated tangle of vested rights involved, something which DPJ Diet members Toru Kikawada and Takeshi Shina, both elected from Iwate prefecture, are leading on. He said that the DPJ would like to work to create a bipartisan consensus toward the realization of such special legislation.
After enumerating the direction that should be taken on such issues, Kaieda said, “Even now, there are still 270,000 evacuees who are forced to live in exile from their hometowns. The DPJ will do everything we can to enable them to rebuild their lives as soon as possible.”
Asked by a reporter whether he thought it was necessary to control the total volume of public works projects and to place them in order of priority, in order to respond to the situation where the breakdown of bidding for such projects is occurring due to a lack of manpower and the high price of materials, Kaieda responded, “This is just what we have been opposing in relation to the supplementary budget for fiscal 2013, and the initial budget for fiscal 2014, which is now being debated in the House of Councillors: that is the way that the budget for unnecessary and non-urgent public works projects has been jacked up in the name of economic stimulus measures. We opposed [the budget] on the grounds that carrying out such projects would delay recovery and reconstruction in the disaster-affected areas. We intend to once again emphasise that it is unacceptable for the implementation of such unnecessary and non-urgent public works projects to delay recovery and reconstruction in the disaster-affected areas, which should be the most important thing. To this end, we are also proposing that the budget be reconstituted. It is certainly necessary to decide an order of priority. The thing that needs to take place right away is the recovery and reconstruction of the disaster-affected areas. ”
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