IT is hard to follow where the National Party and the Liberal-National federal coalition sit on some issues.

Sometimes, it seems they're just a sympathetic ear to country people.

Conservative politicians are good at turning up to rural meetings, listening to people who often, it seems, just want to be heard. But country voters should expect more than just a hearing.

They deserve real action as much as the next voter.

Take the issue of Managed Investment Scheme forestry.

While the Commonwealth saw the sense in getting rid of MIS horticulture, tax-breaks for MIS forestry are still alive and well.

Country people also fear what will happen if the schemes are coupled with carbon credits, which could lead to an explosion of carbon sinks, taking more productive land out of food production. The federal Coalition - which introduced MIS - continues to support the tax-break scheme.

This is despite Liberal leaders Julie Bishop and Andrew Robb telling concerned farmers they had issues with the policy and acknowledged it needed fixing.

But, their support has continued, despite almost all of the major MIS timber companies collapsing in financial ruin and it being partly responsible for dragging down Elders.

Victoria's Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh appears to be well aware of community concerns on MIS. He told Stateside "the key thing we need to do is to make sure that under any carbon initiatives in future there are not perverse outcomes and huge areas are (not) planted out to trees because of carbon credits and land is taken out of food production".

Mr Walsh said he had expressed his view to his federal counterparts but was yet to hear any response.

Liberal Member for Wannon Dan Tehan campaigned for his seat by promising to look into MIS and said the policy was "a debacle".

"There are times when political parties have to accept they got policies wrong. It's time for the Coalition to do this with MIS," Mr Tehan said recently.

Behind the scenes sources say he has been "busting his gut" to get change.

It will be interesting to see how effective he is.