Only a day after it emerged the Nationals senator Fiona Nash had pushed recently to have Barnaby Joyce replace Mr Truss as leader, a group of them set off on a road trip down the NSW coast.

Mr Truss, and the Nationals' deputy leader, Nigel Scullion, are in the lead vehicle.

Senator Joyce, the Nationals' leader in the Senate, is in the car behind driven by Senator Nash. The coastal leg of the so-called Nationals Leadership Tour began on Sunday in Tweed Heads and finishes on Thursday in Orange.

The purpose is to spruik the new policy platform the party adopted at last week's federal council meeting which seeks to differentiate the party further from its Coalition partner, the Liberals.

Motoring from Lismore to Maclean yesterday, Senator Joyce told the Sydney Morning Herald the most common discovery thus far was "people hate the ETS, they hate it with a passion".

"Now they understand it, they don't like it."

The Nationals are set to split from the Liberals on climate change because they do not share Malcolm Turnbull's willingness to negotiate on Labor's emissions trading scheme.

Separately last night, but also on the east coast, Greg Combet, the Assistant Minister for Climate Change, was reassuring concerned citizens in his electorate and home of Newcastle about the ETS.

In a sign the locals in this safe-Labor coal region are nervous, Mr Combet pointed out the average household power bill would rise by about $6 a week, for which low and middle income earners would be given substantial assistance.

As for feared job losses, coalmining output would grow by more than 60 per cent by 2050 even if Australia cuts emissions by the minimum 5 per cent over the same period.