"[T]the whole article is a cracker and well worth the read"
I agree Rollojones but you are rather selective with your quote. The European experience with carbon pricing is a joke that has long ceased being funny.
Only 2 days ago The Sydney Morning Herald - Yes the Fairfax press, that bastion of blinkered left wing reporting - carried this story
"Carbon credits market at point of collapse" http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-credits-market-at-point-of-collapse-20110602-1fijk.html
The views of a few Republicans in the US makes no difference given that even the Democrat President has shelved plans.
In recent times Russia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India and China [amongst others] have made clear they have no immediate plans for pricing carbon [dioxide, they mean]. This is code for "the game is up".
Getting back to Kelly's excellent article, I think he identified that Abbott has his finger on the collective pulse when he said:
"The frequent advice given to Abbott by journalists, that he must get "responsible" and embrace carbon pricing, is worthless. If Abbott followed such advice he would betray his own constituency, lose his base, suffer an irreversible decline in the polls, trigger an internal party crisis and lose the leadership. He is not fool enough to listen to such nonsense. This leads, in turn, to the conclusion that the current Gillard-Abbott struggle is a high policy conflict, the type that can be resolved only by an election."
Abbott is on an unbackable winner here, so why should he care what folk like David Cameron have been railroaded into? The only folk who think Abbott should change his tune are those who tell us that Turnbull would make a better Liberal leader - that is, Labor supporters!
In share trading when you find a formula that is winning, do more of it. Same strategy applies in politics.
