Certain statistics underpin every federal election. Typically, the most important relate to the economy.

The unemployment figure, the inflation rate and the level of interest rates are always significant.

But you can add a couple from left field to the next contest, whenever it is held - the number of boats that arrive carrying asylum seekers, and the price of electricity.

And as it happens, Tony Abbott is engineering an increase in both numbers from Opposition, a remarkable achievement.

Abbott and the Coalition impacted on boat arrivals through its numbers in the Parliament, together with the Greens. Their implied strength caused the Government to abandon legislation that would have allowed for offshore processing and the adoption of the Malaysian agreement. All sorts of factors will ultimately determine how many boats arrive. But undoubtedly there will be more than otherwise would have been the case had it not been for the Government's failure to legislate.

To virtually guarantee electricity price rises, Abbott and the Coalition needed no parliamentary strength, real or implied.

They simply warned businesses not to buy forward permits under an emissions trading scheme. Given the likelihood of a Coalition government beyond the next election, many will heed that advice. They will recognise that implicit in the warning is the prospect that compensation will be hard to get if they commit, and then the taxation regime is ended.

Now any number of experts and business representatives are saying that power bills will go up even more than they otherwise would have because of the uncertainty created. Much of the energy industry will hesitate before investing and the practice of buying future-dated carbon purchases to second guess fluctuations down the track, will not be as popular. All that will come at a cost to the industry, and they will pass on the costs to consumers.

Of course, the Opposition will deny responsibility in both cases, and given its track record, the Government will be hard pressed to make the argument stick.

That simply underlines how politically clever Abbott has been.

The one glimmer of hope for the Government on the carbon issue is that the new arrangements will be in place from July next year, potentially 15 months or so before the next election is called.

Strategists hope that by then, the sky will not have fallen in and most people will have a different perspective.

But that may not be the perspective the Government is counting on. An article in Europe's leading newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, this week, quoted today on the Crikey website, is ominous for the Government.

The article, under the heading "Death of the Kyoto Process," insists there is little prospect that next month's climate summit in Durban, South Africa, will produce an emissions reduction agreement.

The current CO2-reduction agreement expires at the end of 2012 and the magazine judges there is "enormous resistance to new targets".

It says climate change ministers around the world are a long way from breathing new life into the Kyoto process.

That's the real danger. That the ambivalence now obvious in the Australian community will be reflected at the most important forum on the planet.

If that happens, then Tony Abbott might be getting a lot more support and advice as he tries to find a way to unscramble the carbon tax egg.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders.