She called Mr Jennings a “great local candidate” and said climate change would be the crucial factor in the party’s quest to oust current member Mr Gee.

Mrs Keneally and Mr Jennings had spent several days travelling the region and the former premier said the drought was a huge factor. 

“We’ve had many discussions about how the changing climate is quite significantly impacting the Central West,” she said. 

“I will note Andrew Gee, the current member, recently decided climate change was real and was quite possibly the worst-executed political backflip of all time and that was because Andrew Gee and the government he is a part of has absolutely no plan to deal with climate change.”

Mr Jennings thanked Mrs Keneally for the support on the road and said climate change was the biggest issue he believed the Calare electorate was facing and said “farmers are being thrown to the wolves” by the Nationals. 

“The Nats should be the experts in climate change and bringing data out that will reform and educate their farmers for what they’ll be in for,” he said. 

“For traditional Nationals voters they’re starting to have the lived experience of ongoing droughts and that’s making people think ‘there’s something to this climate science’.”