Regional and rural voters are being directly targeted by the prime minister as he tours Queensland to spruik jobs and a strong economy.
But he and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce faced pressure to address fighting within the Liberal-National coalition after Nationals senator Matt Canavan declared the net-zero emissions target "dead".
Scott Morrison said the coalition had an "enduring, honest partnership" and they understood what mattered to regional Australians.
He promoted the coalition as a partnership which carries the best hopes of the nation and combines the values of the country and the city.
Regional coal workers feel looked down on, something that was evident at the last election, he said in a speech to the chamber of commerce in Rockhampton.
"Their jobs and lifestyles derided or seen as somehow unworthy, in a world where the big talkers all seem to work in government, or finance, or the tech industry or the media," he said.
"That is not the country I know. I believe the vast majority of Australians in our capital cities feel a genuine affinity and connection with the Australian heartland."
In his speech to the chamber, Mr Joyce said the election wasn't a popularity contest and appealed to regional voters to trust the coalition.
"We're not asking for you to like us, we're asking for you to understand that you should have confidence in us that we know how to do our job and that we are strong," he said.
Mr Morrison said if re-elected the coalition would ensure people living in Australia's regions had the same economic opportunities as people in the cities.
Yet Labor campaign spokesperson Jason Clare said the coalition was at war with itself over climate change.
"Half the Liberal Party, most of the National Party, think climate change is what happens when you go to Hawaii for a holiday. It's time they got real," he told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday.
"(Australians) have had a gutfull of this, they're sick of politicians fighting about climate change, they just have to look out the window to know it's real."
Mr Morrison said the coalition was committed to its net-zero policy but as prime minister he needed to bring people together from different perspectives across the country.
"That debate has been done in the coalition and it is resolved and our policy was set out very clearly. (Net zero) has the strong support of the government," he said.
"We did the hard yards to get everyone together and of course, there'll be some who disagreed at the time and I suspect they still will, but that doesn't change the government's policy."
The conservative Institute of Public Affairs think tank has been campaigning in north Queensland, talking up its research showing a net zero emissions target would require the scrapping of every coal, gas and oil project in the construction pipeline at a cost of almost 480,000 jobs.
It comes as the coalition slightly improves its position in new polling but Labor remains in an election-winning position of 54.5 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.
The latest Roy Morgan poll shows the LNP gained a small 0.5 per cent during the second week of the campaign.
It's the closest result in six months.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese is due to leave COVID-19 isolation in Sydney on Thursday night, ahead of the party's official campaign launch in Perth on Sunday.
© AAP 2022