【导读】受制于党内分歧，陆克文在大选中面临困境。然而反对党领袖托尼-阿博特又不是那么让人放心。聚集了大量移民的西悉尼地区，或许将是左右这次选举的关键。
Australia’s general election:
澳大利亚大选
Why Parramatta matters
巴拉玛打为何重要
Though voters prefer the prime minister, the opposition, under Tony Abbott, looks likely to win
尽管选民们偏爱现任总理，但托尼·阿博特领导的反对党貌似要赢
Aug 31st 2013 | SYDNEY |From the print edition
TWO notable apologies came from the political leaders invited to the India Australia Friendship Fair on August 25th. Kevin Rudd, the Labor prime minister (pictured, above, left), was called to Canberra for a briefing on Syria so could not attend. Tony Abbott, the opposition leader (above, right), flew to Brisbane to launch his campaign for Australia’s general election on September 7th. Opinion polls suggest Mr Abbott and his Liberal-National coalition will end six years of Labor rule.
8月25日印澳友好大会上，有两位政治领袖的缺席引人注目。工党领袖，陆克文首相（上图左）被召回堪培拉听取关于叙利亚安全简报，所以缺席。反对党领袖托尼·阿博特(上图右）则飞往布里斯班，开始为9月7日的澳大利亚大选造势。民调显示，阿博特和他的自由国家联盟，将会为这六年的工党执政画上句号。
The two federal leaders missed a colourful day of Bollywood music, Indian food and speeches from across Australia’s political divide. Anglo-Celtic politicians who did show up mingled with a 15,000-strong crowd of Indians, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Nepalese and Chinese. Understanding the jamboree’s importance, Mr Rudd and Mr Abbott each sent along their minister and shadow minister for immigration.
两位领导人错过了精彩的一天：宝莱坞音乐，印式食物，还有来自全澳各政治派别的演说。而参与活动的凯尔特族裔政客，则与到场的15000多人玩到了一块。其中有印度人，斯里兰卡人，孟加拉人，尼泊尔人，中国人。陆克文与阿博特派出了各自的移民部长与影子移民部长，可见他们对友好大会的重视。
The fair happened in Homebush, a suburb in the heart of western Sydney. Australia’s biggest city is a chief battleground for the election. Its sprawling western suburbs, home to almost half of metropolitan Sydney’s 4.7m people, will see some of the closest contests. Over the past three decades immigration has transformed what were once white, working-class Labor heartlands into modern Australia’s new frontier. Some 27% of Australians were born overseas. In some parts of western Sydney, the proportion is more than half.
大会举办地为康宝树，西悉尼中部的郊区。悉尼，这个全澳最大城市，是选战的主战场。大都市悉尼大约有一半的居民生活在那并不规整的西部郊区，而他们将会见到最激烈的选举竞争。过去三十年来，移民让这片曾经白种工人阶级的中心地带成为了现代澳大利亚的崭新前沿。大约27%的澳大利亚国民出生在海外。在西悉尼的一些地段，这个比率超过了50%。
Parramatta, one of the oldest suburbs, has drawn many settlers from India, now Australia’s biggest source of immigrants. Cabramatta, about 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) to the south-west, is home to thousands of boat people and their descendants who fled Indochina after the Vietnam war. Political allegiances have swung unpredictably. Chris Hayes, who holds the constituency around Cabramatta for Labor, predicts a lot more volatility in how the west votes this time.
巴拉玛打是历史最为悠久的郊区之一，这里聚集着大量印度移民，而印度，则是现今澳大利亚最大的移民来源地。西南约12公里（7.5英里）的卡巴玛打则是数千船民及其后裔的寓所，越南战争后，他们逃离了印度支那。这里的政治倾向摇摆不定。这一地区的工党候选人克里斯-海耶斯预计道，这一次西悉尼的选情将有甚多变化。
It was partly in the hope of containing that volatility that Labor Party barons dismissed Julia Gillard in June as leader and prime minister and reinstalled Mr Rudd. Under the less popular Ms Gillard, Labor faced big losses in Sydney and other parts of New South Wales, the most populous state. At first the gamble seemed to work, with some opinion polls showing Labor neck-and-neck with the opposition. But they now point to a coalition win. Mr Rudd has had trouble selling to voters the government’s strongest story: its success in keeping the economy growing through the global financial crisis and holding unemployment down to 5.7%. Instead, voters are put off more by Labor’s turmoils since it came to power in 2007: two leadership changes, from Mr Rudd to Ms Gillard and back again, and bitter personal rivalry between the pair. An opinion poll the day before the Homebush fair suggested several Labor-held seats in western Sydney could fall. Labor will also struggle in Queensland, Mr Rudd’s home state; he may even battle to hold his own seat in suburban Brisbane. A senior Labor parliamentarian at the fair thought that “people have stopped listening to Kevin”.
在选战中获得主动的希望，部分是来自今年六月工党大佬们决定罢免当时的总理与党领袖茱莉亚·吉拉德，并重新启用陆克文。吉拉德治下的工党，在悉尼与新南威尔士州的其他部分遭受了重大的损失，而且这是人口最多的州。一开始，工党的孤注一掷效果不错，一些民调显示工党能与反对党并驾齐驱。但现在却显示自由国家联盟将获胜。陆克文已经很难向选民去推销那套最有力的关于政府的说辞：政府成功地在全球金融危机中保持住了经济增长，并且将失业率降到了5.7%。相反，选民更多地因为工党2007上台以后不断的内斗而离开：领导人换了两班，从陆克文到吉拉德，又换回陆克文；而且这一对之间还有激烈的竞争。印澳友好大会前一天的民调显示，在西悉尼，工党可能会失去几个本属自己的席位。在陆克文的家乡昆士兰，工党同样将陷入苦战；他甚至有可能要为布里斯班郊区他自己的议会席位而战。在友好大会上，一位工党资深议员认为“人们已不愿听取陆克文的说辞”。
Mr Abbott has played ruthlessly on Labor’s troubles. He asks Australians if they can “afford another three years like the last six”. A junkyard dog by his own admission, Mr Abbott once had a reputation for gaffes. He has run a disciplined campaign on this occasion, however. The big question is over his sprawling spending plans, which put him at odds with the Liberal Party’s pro-market, small-government stance. He has failed to explain convincingly how he would fund them, especially after the Treasury recently cut forecasts of government revenues over the next four years by A$33 billion ($29 billion).
对于工党的困境，阿博特表现得很残酷。他问全澳民众道他们是否“还承受得起又一个三年，像之前六年一样的三年”。阿博特曾有常失态的名声，他也承认自己令人讨厌。但这次他在竞选活动中表现得体。不过他那大胆的政府开支计划，却与自由党亲市场，小政府的立场相违背，这是个大问题。他没能够令人信服地解释出政府将如何资助这些计划，特别是最近财政部预计未来四年的政府收入将降低330亿澳元（290亿，美元）。
If he wins, Mr Abbott promises that his first act will be to abolish Labor’s carbon tax, introduced last year. In place of a market means of fighting climate change, he offers “direct action”: spending more than A$3 billion over four years on inducements for big carbon-emitters to clean up their acts. Critics argue that such a scheme would be open to abuse.
如果获胜，阿博特承诺将首先废除工党于去年推出的碳排放税。为了取代之前那对抗气候变化的市场化方法，他提供了一个“直接方案”：于四年内花上超过30亿澳元，以此激励碳排放大户清理碳排放。批评家称这样的计划是为违法违规敞开大门。
But Mr Abbott’s most controversial policy involves the federal government giving maternity leave to women earning up to A$150,000 a year at full salary for six months. He plans to cover half the cost with a 1.5 percentage-point rise in the corporate tax rate on high-earning companies. Mr Abbott hatched the maternity-leave idea as a bid to improve his poor standing among women voters. Several prospective ministerial colleagues disapprove of it, and economists have slammed it. Saul Eslake, of Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Australia, calls it a “dreadful policy” that would not bear out Mr Abbott’s claim that it would raise productivity. Mr Eslake says Mr Abbott’s “dubious view of markets” and “greater enthusiasm for government intervention” could dull any business and investor confidence that might follow a coalition win.
不过，阿博特最具争议的政策，是令联邦政府补贴六个月的全额工资给收入达到15万澳元每年的女性。他计划提高企业所得税1.5%，以此来填补这项计划的一半成本。阿博特所酝酿的这个产假方案，是为了改善他在女性选民中的糟糕形象。几位党内同僚，未来的部长候选表示反对，经济学家猛烈抨击。美银美林澳洲分行的索尔-艾斯雷克称此计划为“可怕的政策”，认为它不会像阿博特所称的那样提高生产率。艾斯雷克称阿博特的“对市场暗昧不明的看法”与“更大的政府干预热情”会伤害企业与投资者的信心，而他们本将支持自由国家联盟的获胜。
Mr Rudd started his campaign’s last stages on August 27th with a speech on foreign policy, a field in which Mr Abbott has shown minimal interest. Hugh White, a thinker on foreign policy, reckons Mr Rudd’s ideas on Australia’s international standing are “incomparably better informed” than either Ms Gillard’s or Mr Abbott’s. But they are less likely to swing votes in regions such as western Sydney than the strong anti-Rudd campaign from the two-thirds of Australia’s big-city newspapers run by News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s vehicle. National polls still show that Australians would prefer Mr Rudd to Mr Abbott as prime minister, but they are fed up with Labor. A last-minute Labor win would take a miracle.
8月27日陆克文发表了一场关于外交政策的演说，开启了他最后一阶段的竞选，而外交是阿博特关注最少的领域。外交政策专家休-怀特认为，陆克文关于澳大利亚国际地位的理念比吉拉德或是阿博特的“毫无疑问更出色”。默多克的新闻集团掌握着三分之二澳大利亚大城市的报纸，他们发起了倒陆运动。在改变类似西悉尼地区选民意见这个问题上，这些报纸显然比陆克文的这些理念更为有力。全国民意调查仍然显示澳大利亚人更愿让陆克文做总理，而非阿博特。但是他们受够了工党，所以工党要在最后时刻逆袭，需要奇迹。
From the print edition: Asia