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On January 6, DPJ President Katsuya Okada participated in an interpellatory session on the supplementary budget proposal for fiscal 2015. Prior to asking his questions he condemned the nuclear test carried out by North Korea that same day, calling it an act of folly that it is impossible to ignore, and urging the Japanese government to continue making every effort to gather and analyze information, engage in effective crisis management and disclose information.
Following this, Okada commented, “The supplementary budget embodies the delaying and vote-buying tactics of the Abe administration. The government should comprehensively review the allocation of budget funds for vote-buying measures, and take the drastic step of reducing government bonds for the sake of future generations. The biggest victims of [such pork barrel politics] are the young people of Japan.” He went on to state his vision of the path Japan should take, saying, “What politicians need to achieve is not the ‘dynamic engagement of all citizens’ ordered by the state, but a society in which each and every individual is respected and valued.”
Following the Diet debate, Okada responded to reporters’ questions inside the Diet, and condemned Abe’s responses to his questions as “putting off giving explanations” and “parceling out of criticisms”.
With regard to the former, Okada said that Prime Minister Abe had changed his tune to take a negative stance on policies for ensuring 1 trillion yen’s of budgetary resources for reduced tax rates for consumption tax and reforms to the electoral system, and “did not respond as to what he intended to do as either Prime Minister or LDP leader.” He also criticized the Prime Minister’s comments regarding global-warming countermeasures, stating, “[The Prime Minister] made the erroneous statement that the DPJ had set unrealistic targets. However, the target of reducing greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 is an international promise that was made by Japan when an LDP government was in power. There was no explanation from the Prime Minister as to why current targets have not been linked to this pledge.”
Okada said that the most striking example of Abe’s “parceling out of criticism” was his response to Okada’s comment that “The government should stop parceling out handouts in the supplementary budget and reduce the number of government bonds. Even if you carry out all kinds of public works construction projects for nursing care and child-rearing, the people to work in them are nowhere in sight. The levels of pay for the 2.3 thousand people who work in the nursing care and childcare sectors should first be raised.” In spite of Okada’s detailed argument setting forth the course that should be taken, Abe said that the DPJ “did not have an alternative proposal”. Okada criticized this comment as malicious misrepresentation.
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