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本帖最后由 守望者 于 2013-4-10 21:00 编辑
译者——守望者注：原文由The Age经济版编辑Tim Colebatch撰写。
宏大的蓝图，苍白的内容 —— 评Abbott的政治主张
副标题：联盟党一旦当选，将会在政府管理的许多领域带来激进的变革。
插图：John Spooner
人们一直都想知道，Abbott的联盟党政府究竟将会是怎样的面貌？上周，我们这位“准”总理通过两份令人吃惊的声明给了我们一些线索。其中一份声明是：Abbott政府将砍掉公共交通项目的基金。另一份声明是：Abbott政府将允许拥有高达数百万养老基金的退休富翁们不被征税。
之所以令人感到吃惊，是因为Abbott一直竭力保持低姿态来确保自己不成为一个标靶，而且这确实也起了作用，使得他在民意调查中获益匪浅。但这次的声明，却使得他重新暴露在战壕前的第一线迎接炮火的洗礼。
“Abbott忠实于私立学校，私立医院，私人交通以及政府服务私营化”
生活在城市里的人们期望公共交通能够得到改进。既然联邦政府有钱，他们就希望政府能把重心投入到新的建设项目中。
当Abbott计划废除工党对只有低额养老金存款的360万人所做的税务减免政策的同时，他又反对向拥有高额养老金存款的富人们征税，辩称这是阶级斗争。
大体上而言，联盟党的政策依旧还在酝酿过程中，鲜有细节透露出来。即使是Abbott在电视节目中挥舞的那部《我们的蓝图：为全体澳洲人提供真正的解决方案》，也主要是份愿景声明。只有非常少的一些实在的政策内容，而且大多数还来自于2009年竞选时的那部《战线（Battlelines）》。
Abbott在那部书里说的不错，他指出，我们很少能预先知道一个新政府会是怎样的。比如，1975年，很少人会预想到Fraser政府会尽可能地保留Whitlam的政治遗产；同样，1983年，几乎没人会想到Hawke政府会成为重塑微观经济的开路人。他也许可以加上，极少有人能预见，全球性的经济衰退会帮助削弱了Whitlam以及陆克文/吉拉德政府。
但是，《战线（Battlelines）》（很快会有新的版本）这部书以及Abbott作为反对党领袖的这几年，为我们提供了足够的线索，让我们可以大概知道，如果他作为总理会如何应对挑战。
如霍华德一样，Abbott也是个部落领地的理论家和政治实用主义分子的混合体。霍华德的成功源自他杰出的平衡二者的能力。如我在2005年所述，他是“一位非同寻常的自律且耐心的人，他聆听批评，非常小心地处理有争议的事情，并且能敏锐地判断自己的能力所及”。他的部落领地就是小生意群体，但是，他还有另外的一面，他是个穿运动休闲服的爱国者，他希望成为，也曾经是我们大家的总理。
Abbott就不同了。他的部落领地是更小的一块：富裕的天主教传统分子。自从他的学生时代开始，他就已经定义自己是反对多过建设的角色。他拥护君主制、教会和传统的价值观。但是，很久以前他就决定不再把自己的政治生涯跟这些捆在一起。霍华德有一次曾称他是“超务实主义者”，的确，他是这样的人。Abbott政府的第一条准则将是：绝不能损害他赢得下一次选举的机会。
霍华德和Abbott的区别之处还在于，不管怎样，至少到目前为止，Abbott没有表现出渴望成为我们所有人的领袖。如果他有这个本能，就会用不同的方式来处理养老金以及公共交通的问题。除了一个在如何对待土著澳大利亚人的问题外，Abbott与工党和绿党没有一丝共鸣。只要他们打算做一些事，比如全球天气变暖议题，Abbott天然的本能就是反对。
Abbott本人也处于变化之中:在处理土著人问题上，他就成为一位明智的、有分辨力的（联邦政策）支持者，而且只要他愿意，他有能力在其他方面进行合作。但是，就如《战线》一书所披露的那样，他看问题就是一个原则：私有的就是好的，公立的就是糟糕的。他忠实于私立学校，私立医院，私人交通以及政府服务私营化。
在他的书里最令人吃惊的设想是，让联邦政府单方面接管州属公立学校以及公立医院，并招标让私营机构来运营，就像他将就业服务交由私营的Job Network一样。
可是，州政府们投资并建设了这些学校和医院。他们拥有产权，因此，如果堪培拉准备接管它们，就需要赔偿一大笔费用。其次，联邦宪法清楚地规定了，教育及卫生是由州政府来负责运营的。
Abbott打算通过修宪来授权给堪培拉以接管任何它感兴趣的领域。《战线》一书里甚至包括了完成此事所需的财务草案。显然，在这件事上，他是认真的。
Abbott将不是第一个想撤销州政府的总理。Whitlam，霍克以及霍华德都期望澳洲只有一个政府，下辖地方管理部门。陆克文和吉拉德也很蔑视州政府。但是，没人像Abbott那样把联邦制称为“澳洲最大的政治麻烦”，也没人像他这样提出如此霸道的解决方案。
让我们快速回放一下《我们的蓝图：为全体澳洲人提供真正的解决方案》一书。书里声明：“我们将让当地社区及专家来管理医院，而不是不负责任的官僚来管理（医院董事局），我们将让家长及校长来管理学校，而不是不负责任的官僚来管理（学校董事会）。”
我们将会看到学校和医院的所有者——州政府如何回应。我们会如美国那样，自己选举医院和学校的董事会呢，还是会交给由政治方面原因任命的混蛋，来作为政治腐败的回报。
联盟党的经济政策基本上还是白纸一张，没有任何内容涉及高企的澳元汇率，不平衡的双速经济，收入基数的崩溃以及矿业繁荣后的下一个增长点。也正是这些将决定它能执政的届数。
联盟党声称将削减收入所得税以及公司税，消除碳税和矿业税，与此同时，会投入更多资金在发放育儿离职补贴给高收入职工，Work for the Dole项目以及绿色军团等等。在《我们的蓝图：为全体澳洲人提供真正的解决方案》一书中，我只看到一项减少支出的内容：如果在所居住的区域有蓝领的工作机会，就将取消当地30岁以下人群的失业金；如果某些残疾人“看起来不像是永久性残疾”，就取消他们的残疾人福利。光靠这些，不可能把预算带回到盈余。
如果直到大选前，Abbott都抱着他的政策秘而不宣，就给了工党充分的机会在联盟党的白纸上任意书写我们所害怕见到的内容。
[全文完]
译者再注：虽然时局变化，但对于Abbott今年可能推出的竞选纲领，读者也可以通过重温其2010年的竞选纲领来了解联盟党上次大选时的政策，看看是否会有新的变化。
请参见本人2010年译文http://www.oursteps.com.au/bbs/f ... read&tid=254882
Abbott's big bold plan much too short on detail
April 9, 2013
Tim Colebatch is The Age's economic editor.
The Coalition will make radical changes in many areas of governance if elected.
What would an Abbott government be like? Last week our probable prime minister gave us clues with two surprising statements: an Abbott government would cut off funding of public transport projects, and allow the earnings of retirees with millions in super funds to go untaxed.
It was surprising, because Abbott had been focused on making himself a small target, and his poll rating has shown the benefit. By contrast, these expose him to new lines of attack.
Abbott's loyalty is to private schools, private hospitals, private transport and to private provision of government services.
People in the cities want public transport improved. Since the Commonwealth has all the money, they want it to pull its weight in financing new projects. And when Abbott plans to scrap Labor's tax breaks for 3.6 million people with low super savings, there's a whiff of class warfare in him simultaneously defending a tax exemption for those with very large savings.
By and large, Coalition policies remain a work in progress. Few details have been released. Even the book Abbott waves on television, Our Plan: Real Solutions for all Australians, is mainly a statement of aspirations. It sets out very few concrete policies, and most of those come from his 2009 book Battlelines.
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Abbott rightly points out in that book that we rarely know in advance what a new government will be like. Few in 1975 would have expected the Fraser government to keep as much of Whitlam's legacy as it did; few in 1983 would have tipped the Hawke government to become the path breaker for micro-economic reform. He might have added that few anticipated the global economic slumps that helped undermine the Whitlam and Rudd/Gillard governments.
But Battlelines (soon to reappear in a new edition), and Abbott's years as Opposition Leader, provide strong leads on how he might tackle the challenges he would face as PM.
Like John Howard, Abbott is a mixture of tribal ideologue and political pragmatist. Howard's success came from his remarkable ability to balance the two. As I wrote in 2005, he was ''a man of extraordinary self-discipline and patience, who listens to critics, weighs up arguments carefully, and judges shrewdly how far he can push things''. His tribe was small business, but part of him was the tracksuit-wearing patriot who wanted to be (and was) prime minister for all of us.
Abbott is different. His tribe is a smaller one: affluent Catholic traditionalists. Since student days, he has defined himself more by what he is against than by what he is for. He is for the monarchy, and the church, and traditional values, but he decided long ago not to tie his political career to them. Howard once called him an ''arch-pragmatist'', and he is. Rule one for an Abbott government will be: do no harm to his chances of winning the next election.
Where Howard and Abbott also differ, however, is that, as yet, Abbott has shown no desire to be a leader for all of us. If he had that instinct, he would have handled the superannuation and public transport issues differently. With one important exception - indigenous Australians - he has shown no empathy with the groups Labor and the Greens represent. If they propose doing something, such as tackling global warming, his natural instinct is to oppose it.
Abbott too is a work in progress: he has grown into an informed, discriminating supporter of tackling indigenous problems, and he has the ability to develop other empathies if he chooses to. But as Battlelines reveals, he sees issues through a prism of private sector good/public sector bad. His loyalty is to private schools, private hospitals, private transport and to private provision of government services.
The most startling proposal in his book is that the federal government should unilaterally take over state schools and state hospitals, and turn them into privately run institutions handed out by tender, much as he privatised employment services through the Job Network.
But state governments actually built and paid for those schools and hospitals. They own them, and if Canberra were to take them over, it would have to pay massive compensation. Second, the constitution clearly provides that education and health are run by the states.
Abbott proposes getting around that by a referendum to authorise Canberra to take over any area it wants to. Battlelines even includes a draft bill to do so. He is serious.
Abbott would not be the first PM who wants to get rid of the states. Whitlam, Hawke and Howard all wanted Australia to have one government, backed by regional authorities. Rudd and Gillard at times treated state governments with contempt. But none would have termed the federal system ''Australia's biggest political problem'', as Abbott does, or proposed such a high-handed solution.
Flash forward to Real Solutions. It pledges: ''We will put local communities and experts, not unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of [hospital boards] … We will put parents, principals and school communities, not unaccountable bureaucrats, in charge of [school boards].''
We'll see what the states, their owners, have to say about that. And would we elect hospital and school boards, as in the US, or would they be political appointees, perks handed out as payola in return for favours?
The Coalition's economic policies remain largely a blank sheet; it has had nothing to say about the high dollar, the two-speed economy, the collapse in the revenue base, or what will follow the mining boom. Yet these issues could dominate its term in government.
It has pledged to cut income tax and company tax, and repeal the carbon tax and mining tax - while spending more on parental leave payments for higher-income workers, and beefing up Work for the Dole and the Green Corps, etc. Yet the only savings I spotted in Real Solutions are to cut under-30s off the dole if there are labouring jobs vacant in their area, and to throw people off disability benefits if their disabilities are ''unlikely to be permanent''. That won't get the budget back in surplus.
If Abbott holds back his policies until the campaign, it leaves the way open for Labor to run its own scare campaign by filling in the blanks for us.
Tim Colebatch is economics editor of The Age.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion ... .html#ixzz2PybbnArw
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