Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (14:57): My question is to the Prime Minister. The minister for regionalisation said yesterday that regional Australians are out of sight and out of mind for the Liberal Party. Is that why the Prime Minister has refused to recognise the economic opportunities of climate action for regional Australia for so long?

Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:57): I'm happy to refer to the Deputy Prime Minister in responding to this question about the many achievements that this government has been able to realise for rural and regional Australia. I simply make the point that the challenges that are occurring globally because of the world's response to climate change will have significant impacts on rural and regional Australia. But they also present significant opportunities, and the plans that the government are considering will ensure that we can deal with both the costs and the benefits. We understand there are impacts and that this is not a road where you will only find opportunities. You will also find difficult impacts on Australia, and the government understands that: the Liberal Party understands that and the National Party understands that, because that's where our constituents live.

Between the Liberal and National parties, the Liberal Party in particular, we represent more regional electorates in this parliament than any other party in this parliament. We are joined to the Nationals, and together we are overwhelmingly the representatives of regional Australia in this parliament. That means we understand the impacts on rural and regional Australia, and that's why our plans carefully consider those impacts. That's why our infrastructure plans, our skills plans, our manufacturing and industry plans ensure that we can have heavy industry in places like Gladstone and even down in the Shoalhaven, with the plants there. For all of these places we understand the importance of heavy industry, agriculture and the resources sector to rural and regional Australia, and the contribution those sectors make to Australia's future. That's why every single plan you get from a coalition government will be good for rural and regional Australia. But the Deputy Prime Minister may wish to add.

Mr JOYCE (New England—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development and Leader of the Nationals) (14:59): I thank the honourable member for her question and note so many of the projects. We can go to Tasmania and the Scottsdale Irrigation District. We can start in Gippsland with the Macalister Irrigation District. We can go to roads such as the Hume Highway, the Pacific Highway or the Bruce Highway. We can go to North Queensland and say that the Hells Gate Dam business case will be back in early next year. We can go to Rookwood Weir and actually see us building it. We can go to the Inland Rail—1,716 kilometres—and talk about how that is going to be the corridor of commerce to drive ahead regional areas. Or we can talk about the business plan that we've currently got on the table for the Gladstone to Toowoomba link. All these things are merely a sample. If we go to Western Australia we can see the massive amounts that we are currently putting into road infrastructure, right to the very north into the Kimberley—the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been poured in there. We can go to the defence infrastructure of Darwin or the defence infrastructure of Rockhampton.

There has, without a shadow of a doubt, been massive investment from The Nationals, which is solely the only party that has regional representatives—and also the Liberal Party, which has so many repr