. In 2000, after leaving the ministry, he was elected to a seat of the House of Representatives for the first time; the district he represented, Yamaguchi Prefecture's No. 2 district, was previously a stronghold for the rival Liberal Democratic Party. Following a large-scale upturn by the Liberal Democratic Party, Hiraoka lost his seat by 588 votes, remaining in the Lower House through a process known as proportional representation. In 2008 he took back the Yamaguchi No