New Komeito Key Upper House Election Policy Pledges Manifesto 2007 (Revised from Manifesto 2005)

June 14, 2007

1. Safeguarding the Lives of Citizens (A Life-Affirming Manifesto)

Reversing the Physician Shortfall

●　Develop a national system that will dispatch doctors to communities in need of professional medical assistance on an as-needed basis. New Komeito also calls for the raising of medical service fees in fields most affected by the physician shortage, particularly gynecology and pediatrics, as an economic incentive to expand the manpower pool. As part of a broader, concomitant initiative to increase the number of women physicians, we call for the establishing daycare facilities at the hospitals they work for, to ease the often-conflicting demands of career and family, and to reinforce existing placement service schemes for women medical professionals.

Coping with Cancer: A National Initiative

●　Take the appropriate steps under the National Cancer Initiative—which was enacted with New Komeito acting as its principal architect and agent—to ensure that the level of cancer diagnosis and treatment is consistent on a nationwide basis by enhancing and expanding cancer screening programs and developing effective early-stage cancer therapies.

●　Facilitate the adoption of radiotherapy and chemotherapy proven to be equally, or more effective than surgery, in treating certain cancer types whose incidences have been increasing in large part to the Westernization of the Japanese diet. Programs to train oncologists in these therapies would also be fast-tracked.

●　Develop a system to institute the practice of second-opinion consultation, thereby allowing patients to select the therapy of their choice without fear of offending their primary physician.

●　Institutionalize the practice of palliative care in the initial phases of cancer therapy through training and educational programs that are accessible to the entire medical profession to alleviate the pain and suffering associated with therapy.

Nationwide Deployment of EMS Helicopters

●　Enhance the survivability of victims of trauma and other medical emergencies in under-populated areas and outlying islands by enlarging the fleet of emergency medical service (EMS) helicopters from the 11 now deployed in ten prefectures to 50 in 47 prefectures within five years, based on the passage of our EMS helicopter bill.

●　Equip heliports in regions and communities suffering from a shortage of medical professionals with night-landing lights to permit after-dark EMS operations.

●　Initiate programs to train and educate medical personnel, including physicians, as flight crews for EMS helicopter operations.

●　Institute measures at the earliest possible opportunity to reduce the financial burden on prefectural governments operating the helicopters, either by absorbing operational costs through the medical health insurance program (factoring in the overall cost reduction in medical services the aircraft will provide) or through subsidies from other programs.

2. Securing a Safe, Sustainable Social Security System

Righting the Pension Record Fiasco

●　Complete the collation of the estimated 50 million pension premium payment records with their corresponding basic pension identification numbers at the highest possible speed and accuracy. Confirmation procedures will be concluded by June 2008, while status notification to pensioners currently receiving benefits will be concluded by August 2008. Subscribers presently paying into the program will be notified by March 2009. The Social Insurance Agency’s previously adopted statute of limitations of five years will be waived and pensioners found during the collation process to be owed benefits beyond the five-year limit will be fully reimbursed. Every step will be taken for eligible pensioners to receive due compensation.

●　Proactively restore and recognize through an independent commission the full entitlement rights of pensioners whose records the SIA has lost, or if he or she cannot provide the material evidence because they have not kept receipts of past premium payments.

●　Notify pension program subscribers of their payment history on an annual basis from April 2008.

Securing Pension Finances Security

●　Continue reinforcing the national pension program’s fiscal foundations by raising the government’s share of contributions to the basic pension to 50 percent, as stipulated by the 2004 pension reform initiative, which was originally developed by New Komeito as our “100-year plan.”

Improving Retirement Security

●　Extend the moratorium on halted premium payments for one-time pension program subscribers from two years to five years.

●　Improve the National Pension Fund system, a supplemental pension benefit package for national pension program subscribers, by expanding its eligibility and utility.

Social Insurance Agency Reform

●　Restructure the government’s social security system by dissolving the SIA and replacing it with a new agency to incorporate private-sector management　methodologies and enhance work productivity and service offerings to the public.

3. Safeguarding Our Children’s Future

Improving Childcare Support

●　Raise the eligible age for dependents receiving a government subsidy to ninth-graders (third-year junior high school students), and for the next phase—in which the first and second child will receive a monthly subsidy of 10,000 yen each—doubling the allotment to 20,000 yen for every child born thereafter.

●　Raise the one-time government allowance for newborn children from the 350,000 yen provided now to 500,000 yen in the near future.

Tackling Truancy, Classroom Bullying

●　Implement initiatives that aim to reverse the growing incidences of classroom bullying and truancy. Our proposals include: the forming of special “rescue squads” that immediately respond to cries for help from bullied children; establishing special “havens” that truant students can stay and learn; and adoption of a “spiritual buddy,” confidence-building system through which children can freely confide their problems and receive counseling to proactively prevent truancies from developing.

Experiential Learning Initiatives

●　Expand and enhance extracurricular programs for children, which would include such offerings as supplementary study classes and experiential vocational activities, through cooperation and coordination with non-profit organizations and volunteer groups at the local community level.

●　Develop and implement an educational program for all elementary school children to experience firsthand rural areas throughout Japan for a minimum of one week. The program’s purpose is two-fold: to broaden the worldview of student participants and, as a community-wide effort, revitalize the host community.

Reducing the High Cost of Education

●　Introduce initiatives to alleviate the financial burden of pre-school education, including enhancements to government incentives for private kindergartens as a means to encourage schools to increase enrollment.

●　Raise the ceiling on the government’s monthly interest-bearing student loans from 100,000 yen to 120,000 yen. In addition, we will modify the tax code so that the interest on these loans will be tax deductible over the loan term.

4. Safeguarding the Security of Citizens

Disaster Response and Relief

●　Upgrade on a strategic and priority basis disaster prevention, contingency planning, and emergency management programs in preparation for a wide range of natural disasters, including major earthquakes, tsunami strikes and landslides.

●　Upgrade and make earthquake-resistant coastal protection works in below-sea-level areas, construct and/or refurbish high-water revetments along smaller rivers, and install or reinforce landslide bulwarks to prepare for natural disasters—from increasingly powerful typhoons to torrential rains and both wave and storm surges—caused by global warming.

Enhancing Public Safety—A “Safe and Secure Community” Bill

●　Enact legislation allowing the national and local governments to actively support public safety efforts at the community level, focusing on some 32,000 volunteer crime prevention associations throughout Japan. Our initiative would empower these groups to engage in crime-fighting community development projects and projects to heighten public awareness on crime prevention.

Crackdown on Firearms, Organized Crime

●　Strengthen waterfront controls by law enforcement agencies to prevent the smuggling of firearms and narcotics, and step up enforcement activities against criminal organizations.

Improving Housing Quality, Confidence

●　Institutionalize a rating system to evaluate the quality of commercially rented units to facilitate the availability of low-rent, high-quality housing.

●　Secure a government guarantee that senior citizens and other low-income residents can continue renting state-subsidized apartments from the now-privatized Japan Housing Corporation.

5. Building a Dynamic Nation (Priming the Economy, Local Communities)

Community Rejuvenation

●　Revitalize non-urban communities by fast-tracking New Komeito’s Economic Development Strategy. We plan to roll out programs to support locally formulated community development projects and initiatives utilizing local resources to create new sources of revenue (the goal being to generate 1,000 cases over five years). Support for local small businesses will also be a top priority, initially through expanded use of the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, Japan, as well as a zero-collateral financing system that New Komeito was instrumental in establishing.

●　Establish Japan as a premier tourist destination for the world by further promoting the government’s Visit Japan Campaign. In addition, gain wider acceptance in the business community on allowing employees to take extended paid leave as part of our tourism promotion initiative.

Facilitating Innovation

●　Reinforce closer ties between the government, industry and academic institutions for the comprehensive and integrated promotion of R&D investment and human resource development, as the facilitation of innovation occupies a central position in our Economic Development Strategy.

●　Facilitate private-sector investment in R&D, human resource development, as well as IT and other technologies to promote innovative technologies, products and services. Prioritize government investment in strategic, high-growth fields, including environmental technologies, networking and communications, bioengineering and nanotechnology.

Small Business Initiatives

●　Double the government’s outlays in support of small and medium enterprises (SME).

●　Establish a comprehensive framework to facilitate a smoother handover of family businesses by instituting fundamental revisions to the business inheritance tax system, led by a lowering/elimination of the tax on inherited unlisted shares.

●　Introduce initiatives supporting local shopping arcades—many of which are being shuttered as a result of fierce retail-industry competition—that are aggressively developing alternative shopping experiences, from wireless and web-based services to businesses catering to the demographic trends of a tapering birthrate and growing elderly population.

Revitalizing Rural Communities

●　Continue pushing forward a Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries program that extends state support to farmers and farming cooperatives that have consistently demonstrated drive and agribusiness expertise, rather than supporting the growing of specific crop lines as in the past. We also call for the organization of farming cooperatives as a means to train and educate a new generation of farmers who meet the diverse needs of their respective communities.

●　Aggressively support a “green tourism” program in which urban residents have the opportunity to experience farming or cultivate plots for themselves for recreational purposes at rural communities. We will also introduce initiatives to protect and preserve existing farmlands and restore discarded ones, and to further encourage urban farming.

●　Fast-track a much-delayed national program to develop forests through a series of initiatives that include promoting the use of domestic timber (which is presently too expensive to compete with imports) and facilitating the development of multi-aged and mixed-species forests. Another priority will be to increase employment in the forestry industry.

●　Push further forward a government program in support of individuals, cooperatives and companies engaged in the fishing industry exhibiting genuine drive and expertise to remain competitive. In line with this program, New Komeito will work to improve the living standards of Japan’s smaller islands because they play a vital role for the industry, which in turn serves our nation and people in so many ways.

6. For the Sake of Peace and Our Environment

Promoting Peace and Disarmament

●　Abolish nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction as part of our longstanding commitment to diplomatic initiatives to advance peace. Introduce proposals facilitating the earliest possible ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, including implementing the treaty on a provisional basis should a minimum necessary number of signatories be secured.

●　Serve in facilitating prompt international agreement on the Arms Trade Treaty and establish a functional global framework restricting the import and export of small arms. In addition, assist countries affected by small-arms violence by carrying out weapons retrieval projects and through official development aid programs.

●　Fuel further advances in technologies to detect and dispose antipersonnel landmines by making available Japanese engineering expertise and foreign aid, and through initiatives to train explosives disposal personnel. Also provide funding for ongoing landmine removal programs and support projects for victims.

Global Warming Initiatives

●　Achieve the goal of reducing by 6 percent Japan’s carbon footprint as agreed upon in the Kyoto Protocol. Introduce initiatives to utilize natural energy sources such as solar and wind power in everyday life, and support construction of eco-friendly homes and buildings.

●　Halve the world’s carbon footprint by 2050 by creating a new and viable post-Kyoto Protocol framework that enlists the full participation of major greenhouse gas nations that includes the United States, China and India.

●　Enact a national initiative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through simple measures practiced by all citizens to conserve energy at home.

●　Establish a special bilateral fund for China and Japan to finance environmental projects requiring a long-term commitment. Assume a leadership position in the world in developing specialists on global warming issues, as well as experts on environmental education.

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