December 17, 2010
With the addition of two Japanese Communist Party representatives in 2007, a local assembly has undergone a major change in policies: luxurious overseas trips were abolished; medical fees for children under six years old have become free of charge; and tax money in the form of subsidies was returned by a big company. All these policies have been adopted by the Mie Prefectural Assembly.
With the addition of two Japanese Communist Party representatives in 2007, a local assembly has undergone a major change in policies: luxurious overseas trips adopted by the so-called “all-are-ruling-parties” assembly were abolished; medical fees for children under six years old have become free of charge; and tax money in the form of subsidies was returned by a big company. All these policies have been adopted by the Mie Prefectural Assembly.
The prefectural government used to give its assembly members up to 1.2 million yen each for overseas business trips per tenure. Almost all assemblypersons, including those of the Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Komei Party, were using this system and always claimed the full 1.2 million yen in travel expenses no matter what country they went to or how long they stayed.
Hagiwara Ryokichi and Mayumi Toshio were JCP members who were severely criticizing this system as a typical case of the wasteful use of tax money. These two JCP members ran for the 2007 assembly election making a public promise to abolish the system of tax-funded overseas travel. They succeeded in winning in the election, and soon this policy was done away with.
Hagiwara and Mayumi also called for more democracy and progressive reform in the overall activities of assembly members. Thanks to their effort to work to eliminate the wasteful use of tax revenues, all assembly members now have to make public what they bought or used with policy research funds. Additional perks to the salary of the members also disappeared.
Residents of Mie Prefecture were requesting an expansion in the age of eligibility for the free-medical care program. However, before the JCP appearance in the assembly, no one was willing to be a mediator so the topic had never been put on the assembly agenda. After becoming assembly members in 2007, Hagiwara and Mayumi volunteered to act as sponsors of an amendment to the policy regarding eligible age for free medical care. One year later, all preschool-age children in the prefecture became eligible for free medical care.
The prefectural government used to give treatment preferential to large corporations over the prefectural people’s livelihoods. The prefecture provided nine billion yen in subsidies to Sharp Corporation to establish a plant in the City of Kameyama. Hagiwara and Mayumi strongly opposed the subsidy from the beginning. When Sharp’s plan to sell its production facility at the Kameyama Plant to a Chinese enterprise came to light in 2009, they repeatedly urged the prefectural government to demand that Sharp return the subsidy to the prefecture. Sharp, eventually, promised to return 640 million yen to Mie Prefecture.
They stood out in their efforts to overcome measures attaching more importance to large corporations than to residents. A veteran conservative assemblyman showed his honest feeling by saying, “We know we should do something, but we don’t speak up and say ‘No!’ to anything corporations demand. It is the only JCP members who can do this.”
- Akahata, December 17, 2010
The prefectural government used to give its assembly members up to 1.2 million yen each for overseas business trips per tenure. Almost all assemblypersons, including those of the Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Komei Party, were using this system and always claimed the full 1.2 million yen in travel expenses no matter what country they went to or how long they stayed.
Hagiwara Ryokichi and Mayumi Toshio were JCP members who were severely criticizing this system as a typical case of the wasteful use of tax money. These two JCP members ran for the 2007 assembly election making a public promise to abolish the system of tax-funded overseas travel. They succeeded in winning in the election, and soon this policy was done away with.
Hagiwara and Mayumi also called for more democracy and progressive reform in the overall activities of assembly members. Thanks to their effort to work to eliminate the wasteful use of tax revenues, all assembly members now have to make public what they bought or used with policy research funds. Additional perks to the salary of the members also disappeared.
Residents of Mie Prefecture were requesting an expansion in the age of eligibility for the free-medical care program. However, before the JCP appearance in the assembly, no one was willing to be a mediator so the topic had never been put on the assembly agenda. After becoming assembly members in 2007, Hagiwara and Mayumi volunteered to act as sponsors of an amendment to the policy regarding eligible age for free medical care. One year later, all preschool-age children in the prefecture became eligible for free medical care.
The prefectural government used to give treatment preferential to large corporations over the prefectural people’s livelihoods. The prefecture provided nine billion yen in subsidies to Sharp Corporation to establish a plant in the City of Kameyama. Hagiwara and Mayumi strongly opposed the subsidy from the beginning. When Sharp’s plan to sell its production facility at the Kameyama Plant to a Chinese enterprise came to light in 2009, they repeatedly urged the prefectural government to demand that Sharp return the subsidy to the prefecture. Sharp, eventually, promised to return 640 million yen to Mie Prefecture.
They stood out in their efforts to overcome measures attaching more importance to large corporations than to residents. A veteran conservative assemblyman showed his honest feeling by saying, “We know we should do something, but we don’t speak up and say ‘No!’ to anything corporations demand. It is the only JCP members who can do this.”
- Akahata, December 17, 2010
