As the saying goes, all politics is local, but in an isolated country such as Australia the dollars are won by travelling abroad.
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While those not in government might throw a few cheap shots at "Airbus Albo", Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, for his ballooning international travel expenses, in many of our trading partner countries, being face-to-face is critical for building and maintaining relationships, trade and regional stability.
That's not to say the government's domestic policies are any good. As previously mentioned in this column they are quite literally throwing agriculture under the bus to win votes.
Unfortunately we're in an era where domestic politics is dominated by parochial politicians and policy at the expense of greater national gain.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham's criticism of the current Prime Minister's international travel is an example of playing the domestic popularity contest, when in reality it was under his party's leadership that a lot of international ties - in particular with China and the Pacific Islands - were undone.
Every bit as frustrating is the domestic policies of Labor on live sheep exports and water buybacks, which will impact on our productive potential and economic vibrancy.
And now with the free trade agreements with the European Union shelved - which needed to be - we need our federal leaders building our relationships at an international level with all our trading partners.
The EU, after all, has shown it is quite happy to take the mickey with the detail in its agreements, as seen with how the fine print in the Canadian and New Zealand trade agreements means they'll be unlikely to reap any real benefit in terms of volume of goods into the EU.
The US, one of our other key trading partners, has also been taking a more protectionist path in recent years, irrespective of which side's in power.
As a largely exporting nation, and in the context of all this, we need to be working the doormat into as many trading partner countries as possible.
Healthier diplomatic and trading ties with countries like China could very well more than pay back Albanese's current, growing travel expense account down the track and could prove critical to a commodities-based economy such as ours.
