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导读
澳大利亚人口少，为什么不敢放开移民？
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听力|精读|翻译|词组
澳式规则
英文部分选自经济学人Leaders版块
Aussie rules
澳式规则
What the world can learn from Australia
全世界可以从澳大利亚学到什么
It is perhaps the most successful rich economy
它可能是最成功的发达经济体
What is the biggest problem facing America? Or Japan? Or Britain? Or France? Opinions vary, naturally, but some worries crop up again and again. Those of a materialist bent point to decades of slow growth in median incomes, which has bred disillusion and anger among working people. Fiscal hawks decry huge public debts, destined to grow even vaster as ageing populations rack up ever bigger bills for health care and pensions. Then there is immigration, which has prompted a furious populist backlash in the United States and all over Europe. That hints at what, for many, is the most alarming trend of all: the lack of any semblance of a political consensus about how to handle these swelling crises.
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注：understanding-populism-ideology-backlash:
https://blog.oup.com/2016/12/understanding-populism-ideology-backlash/
Rising incomes, low public debt, an affordable welfare state, popular support for mass immigration and a broad consensus on the policies underpinning these things—that is a distant dream in most rich countries. Many Western politicians could scarcely imagine a place that combined them all. Happily, they do not have to, because such a country already exists: Australia .
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Perhaps because it is far away from everywhere, or has only 25m inhabitants, or is seen mainly as a habitat for cuddly marsupials, it attracts relatively little attention. But its economy is arguably the most successful in the rich world. It has been growing for 27 years without a recession—a record for a developed country. Its cumulative growth over that period is almost three times what Germany has managed. The median income has risen four times faster than in America. Public debt, at 41% of gdp, is less than half Britain’s.
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《澳大利亚经济连续第27年无衰退增长》
https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/usstock/c/2018-06-06/doc-ihcqccip1465582.shtml
Luck has had a hand in these feats, to be sure. Australia is blessed with lots of iron ore and natural gas, and is relatively close to China, which hoovers up such things. But sound policymaking has helped, too. After the last recession, in 1991, the government of the day reformed the health-care and pensions systems, requiring the middle class to pay more of its own way. The result is that Australia’s government spends just half the oecd average on pensions as a share of gdp—and the gap will only widen in the years ahead.
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Even more remarkable is Australia’s enthusiasm for immigration. Some 29% of its inhabitants were born in another country—twice the proportion in the United States. Half of Australians are either immigrants themselves or children of immigrants. And the biggest source of immigrants is Asia, which is fast changing the country’s racial mix. Compare that with America or Britain or Italy, where far smaller inflows have generated hostility among a big portion of the electorate—or Japan, where allowing foreigners to settle in any numbers is a political taboo. In Australia both main parties argue that admitting lots of skilled migrants is essential to the health of the economy.
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These achievements are not without their flaws. The private investment funds through which Australians are obliged to save for their retirement have been charging excessive fees, leaving pensioners poorer than they should be. And as welcoming as Australia is to immigrants arriving through normal channels, it treats those who try to come by boat without the proper paperwork with unnecessary severity, packing them off to remote islands in the Pacific where even legitimate refugees have been left to rot for years.
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Moreover, there are reforms that Australia should be undertaking and is not. Aboriginal Australians suffer from enormous disadvantages, which a succession of governments has barely dented. Global warming is clearly causing grave damage—droughts have become more frequent and more severe, among other dismal consequences—yet Australia has done almost nothing to curb its emissions of greenhouse gases.
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Nonetheless, Australia’s example shows that reforms considered impossible elsewhere are perfectly achievable. Democrats in America assail most proposals to restrain the rising costs of public pensions or health care as tantamount to throwing grannies off a cliff; in Australia it was the left that pioneered such policies. The Labor Party sold obligatory private pensions to unions as an increase in benefits, since it is technically employers who are required to make regular payments into investment funds on their workers’ behalf. The party also made sure to retain a basic public pension, which is paid only to those who have not managed to build up adequate personal savings.
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By the same token, it is quite possible to maintain popular support for mass immigration, even from culturally dissimilar places. But it is essential to give voters the sense that their borders are properly policed and that there is no free-for-all (see next leader). Again, bipartisanship is important. It was a right-wing government that first allowed immigration from Asia on a big scale, admitting lots of refugees from Vietnam in the 1970s.
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Australia’s political system rewards centrism. All eligible citizens must vote, by law, and those who might not bother to turn out otherwise tend to plump for mainstream parties. There is no need to rally supporters to the polls by pandering to their prejudices. Since everyone has to show up, politicians focus instead on winning over the wavering middle. The system of preferential voting, whereby Australians rank candidates in order of choice, rather than picking just one, also exerts a moderating influence.
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The irony is that, just as the benefits of this set-up are becoming so obvious, Australians appear to be growing disenchanted with it. Voters express growing doubts about the effectiveness of government. It has not cost the two main parties many seats, thanks to the electoral system, but their vote-share has fallen by 20 percentage points since the 1980s. Politicians, conscious of voters’ disgruntlement, have also become increasingly febrile. They are constantly turfing out prime ministers, in the hope that a new face will boost their party’s standing with the electorate. Some in the ruling Liberal Party, although not the current prime minister, have begun to call for a reduction in immigration, undermining decades of consensus. Ambitious reforms have become rare. The rest of the world could learn a lot from Australia—and Australians could do with a refresher course, too.
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翻译组：
Aileen，女，研究僧，经济学人粉丝
Samantha，女，不吃米饭，邓伦未婚妻
Wesley，男，自由职业，经济学人铁粉
Cyrus，男， 口译民工，经济学人爱好者
Doris，女，法律学习者，经济学人爱好者
Rena，女，国际学校老师，经济学人爱好者
Yao，英专本科生，准上外小硕，只读不背的经济学人爱好者
校核组：
Neil, 男，外贸民工，经济学人铁粉
VeRy，男，电气民工，经济学人资浅爱好者
知识点收集组：
sun小河，研究生，学习英语，TE爱好者
Rainy，出国党，国际关系专业，TE爱好者
Abigail,女，英专学生党，经济学人爱好者
Kathy，英专，CATTI、雅思备考，外刊爱好者3
观点|评论|思考
本次观点由Cyrus独家奉献
Cyrus，男， 口译民工，经济学人爱好者
在澳大利亚，大概每一分四十四秒就有一个婴儿出生，每五十三秒就有一个人移居到此。得益于人口的快速增长和新移民的不断加入，使得澳大利亚的经济自打上世九十年代以来以每年3%的速度快速成长。有的人说这是因为澳洲施行了正确的经济策略，也有人说这得益于活跃的商品经济周期，甚至还有的人说澳洲的长期发展离不开中国的崛起。在这一切表象的背后，推动澳洲经济持久不衰的最大动力其实是不断壮大的移民队伍。3％的年成长率减去1.4%的人口年增长率后，其实澳洲每年的人均增长也就1.6%，因此移民人口的贡献不可或缺。
技术移民弥补了澳洲各行各业人才的空缺，而早期的传统移民（包括难民）也为澳洲人口增长做出了贡献，既保证了充足的劳动力，又培养了雄厚的消费人群。即便如此，前两届政府都曾大力主张削减移民数量。有人抱怨移民入侵夺走了本地人的工作机会，加重了交通压力。而且随着中国和印度成为澳洲两个最重要的移民来源国，澳洲本地房价不断上涨，亚洲移民因此受到揶揄。
随着欧洲难民危机不断失控和美国民粹总统特朗普的上台，欧美民族主义不断抬头，移民问题不断被政治化，内部社会撕裂严重，极大浪费了欧美本地的社会资源。在这个问题上，澳大利亚则显得略胜一筹。即便偶尔有某些极端政客针对移民发出了不当言论，但是人们都清楚解决当地民生社会问题的唯一途径是政府应该进行合理的规划，从而让整个社会的运作更加高效，驱散移民并不符合澳洲这个移民之地的核心价值，毕竟将近半数澳洲人口都是在海外出生的（或者父母至少有一方是在海外出生）。
纵然澳洲在全民医疗，平均工资水平以及政府债务各方面都值得各国学习借鉴，但是其处理移民问题的态度及方式仍是本地社会长久发展的巨大基石。毕竟一个国家要发展，内部社会并无他选，只能团结。
衍生阅读1：
Critics should remember that immigration drives Australia's success
https://www.theage.com.au/national/critics-should-remember-that-immigration-drives-australia-s-success-20180226-p4z1ue.html
衍生阅读2:
Australia's Economic Miracle Depends On Immigration. So Why Curb It?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/salvatorebabones/2017/10/26/australias-economic-miracle-depends-on-immigration-so-why-curb-it/#1afb0dac6141
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