His remarkable performance in the lead-up to the Glasgow climate summit last year, when the Nationals held their Coalition partners to ransom and managed to extract a large war chest from which he was doling out promised grants left, right and centre on the "wombat trail", left voters right around Australia in no doubt that the so-called consensus on zero emissions by 2050 was a sham.

Matt Canavan's unsolicited commentary to the effect that net zero was "dead", which Barnaby did little to quash, early on in the campaign only made things even worse.

While the Nationals, who had claimed to fear an electoral backlash if they committed to the Liberal's net zero target, were able to pork-barrel their way to safety, the former Coalition government has paid a heavy price for their half-hearted support. It has now been hollowed out by a strong pro-climate action teal vote and looks likely to move even further to the right.

And, irony of ironies, the election result would suggest the Nationals may have performed even better if they had been sincere in embracing the zero-emissions target.

Results from right across the board seem to suggest many National MPs were re-elected despite their climate scepticism, not because of it, and that the largesse that was scattered with such gay abandon was what probably got them across the line.

That said, Nationals MPs may find it very hard to get the Albanese government to honour their cheques.

None of this should come as a surprise to anybody, least of all the Nationals and the Liberals and themselves. While the Morrison government did its level best to make this an election about national security and the cost of living, two issues that backfired spectacularly, it is now clear voters were most concerned about the issues clearly identified in a February survey of readers by ACM, publisher of this newspaper.

That survey, which was responded to by more than 7200 people mostly from regional Australia, saw the environment and climate change top the list of issues in order of importance. Almost half of ACM readers said the environment and climate change was a top concern. Health, a vexed issue in many country communities, came in second, and leadership and the need for a federal anti-corruption commission were third and fourth.

Economic management came in sixth, while national security and defence was ninth, below aged care and the cost of living.

This, especially when coupled with the disastrous performance of the Liberals in south-east Queensland in the wake of this year's floods, makes it clear that while the LNP wasn't talking about the climate - largely because they did not have a good story to tell - the voters were.

The results of the ACM survey have been validated by responses to a wide range of other polls and surveys, including the ABC's Vote Compass, over the life of the parliament.

An Australian Climate Council survey found strong support for more government action on climate change - including a lower 2030 emissions target - in every electorate.

One hopes that, with the benefit of hindsight, a chastened Coalition will learn that instead of talking to voters about what it thinks they should be interested in, it would do better at the ballot box if it listened to people's concerns and then set policies accordingly.

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