组阁谈判第二周 独立议员漫天要价越来越引发争议

为了打破悬峙议会、解决组阁僵局，独立议员们继续与两大党领袖进行关键性的会谈。他们将决定由哪一边组成少数政府。

工党将满足三位独立议员温莎（Tony Windsor）、奥克肖特（Rob Oakeshott）和凯特（Bob Katter）上周提出的七点要求之一，提出改革议会的方案，包括改变提问时间等具体措施。

独立议员们还希望能看到在政治捐赠、竞选资金和政治宣传广告方面的改进。联邦财长斯旺（Wayne Swan）更表示很希望看到改革全面进行。他表示：“这对新政府来说是一个推行议会改革的绝好机会。这几年来，包括独立议员在内的很多议会成员一直在探讨此事。现在正是趁着议会改革从而推行一些根本性变革的好时机。”

而来自塔州的第四位独立议员威尔基（Andrew Wilkie）也在昨天赶到堪培拉与反对党领袖艾伯特（Tony Abbott）进行第一次正式会谈。威尔基和温莎都表示他们希望在本周末之前决定支持哪一方，尽快化解组阁僵局。

与此同时，各位独立议员的漫天要价也越来越引发澳洲社会各界不满和争议。8月31日出版的《Herald Sun》就对此发表社论，认为澳洲选民需要一个稳定的政府尽快出炉执政，而不是来回扯皮陷于不切实际的要价泥潭。该报并配上一幅著名漫画家Mark Knight的卡通画，对此现象予以幽默的嘲讽。

画面中塔州独立议员威尔基向吉拉德总理提出一系列wish list，其中一条就是在孤岛塔斯曼尼亚和澳洲大陆之间搭建一座跨海大桥。他自言自语道：“这个条件嘛，我好像觉得确实有点不切实际，但我很愿意联邦政府最后出资修建一条海底隧道也行。”

AS Australia waits to find out who will govern the nation, the wish lists of the independents are becoming just that.

There is a grab-bag of ideas from the increasingly confident independents that if taken up may prove to be unworkable.

Statements from some of the independents are pie-in-the-sky and some are downright silly.

Reintroducing tariff barriers would be a step into an economic past that does not need to be revisited.

Other ideas from the independents are sensible. An independent speaker is one of them. So is limiting answers in question time in Parliament to four minutes. So, too, is an independent debates commission to stop the I-will-but-you-won’t nonsense.

The independents need to show they are serious, and so does the Government and the Coalition.

The voters want the parties to get on with stable government, not drift into another election because they don’t like the answers they got in this one.