Anthony Albanese says he travelled overseas less than Scott Morrison in his first 12 months. Is that correct?

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The claim

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has recently attracted renewed criticism for his international travel.

Asked at the conclusion of the APEC summit in San Francisco about the number of trips he had taken during his tenure and whether he should have attended, Mr Albanese said:

“Well, I note that I travelled less in my first twelve months as prime minister than Scott Morrison did.”

Is that correct? RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.

Has the prime minister travelled less than his predecessor?(AAP: Dean Lewins)

The verdict

Mr Albanese’s claim is splitting hairs.

After 12 months in office, the prime minister had made one less trip than his predecessor (11 trips, compared to Mr Morrison’s 12).

But by the date of Mr Albanese’s claim, some 18 months after taking office, their positions had reversed, with Mr Albanese on 18 trips and Mr Morrison on 17.

There are also other ways to assess who travelled less.

Measured by days spent abroad, for example, Mr Albanese was ahead of Mr Morrison at both 12 months (55 days to 40) and 18 months (83 days to 62).

He had also visited more countries than Mr Morrison after 12 months (18 countries to Mr Morrison’s 17) and 18 months (30 countries to 22).

Still, the data also shows that there is nothing unusual about the amount of travel undertaken by Mr Albanese compared to other previous prime ministers.

Numbers aside, experts contacted by Fact Check said they did not think that simple travel counts were the best way of assessing the effectiveness of prime ministers and prime ministerial travel, instead preferring more qualitative analysis.

What does it mean to travel ‘less’?

A number of different measures can be used to quantify a prime minister’s overseas travel.(AAP: Joel Carrett)

Mr Albanese claimed he had travelled “less” than his Coalition predecessor, though several competing metrics have been floated during the debate over prime ministerial travel.

They include the number of trips taken, countries visited, days spent outside Australia and even kilometres travelled.

Flavia Bellieni Zimmermann, a lecturer in politics in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia, told Fact Check that a good measure of who travelled more or less would be “the number of countries and days spent overseas”.

She added that it would be problematic to instead use kilometres travelled, given Australia’s geographic isolation.

“For example, a point to consider is our relationship with the US, and the key role the US plays for Australia’s national security through ANZUS, the QUAD and now AUKUS. Although there are more kilometres travelled [by our leaders] if compared to any other nations in the Indo-Pacific, the relationship is a central point for … [regional] peace and stability,” she said.

Stephen Mills, an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s School of Social and Political Sciences and a former speechwriter for former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, said the best measure was days spent abroad.

“Certainly not countries visited or kilometres travelled, it’s not a frequent flyer system,” he said.

Notably, the question to which Mr Albanese was responding referred to his “18 foreign trips in 18 months as prime minister”.

To assess Mr Albanese’s claim, Fact Check will consider the number of trips taken, the number of days spent abroad and the number of countries visited by each prime minister.

Number of trips

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s annual reports typically contain information about the dates, duration and destinations of prime ministerial trips.

Supplemented with data from media releases, official travel programs and news reports, Fact Check has graphed the number of trips taken by Mr Albanese and Mr Morrison over time.

By 12 months into their respective terms, Mr Albanese had clocked up 11 trips overseas to Mr Morrison’s 12.

But by the 18-month mark, when he made his claim, Mr Albanese had overtaken Mr Morrison with 18 trips compared to the former prime minister’s 17.

At this point in Mr Morrison’s term, however, Australia was roughly a month into its first outbreak of COVID-19, which would likely have curtailed his ability to travel.

Zooming out to include other prime ministers, the data shows that, over the first 12 months, Mr Albanese had taken a similar number of trips to prime ministers Rudd (12), Abbott (11) and Morrison (12).

Meanwhile, both Malcolm Turnbull and Julia Gillard had taken eight.

Eighteen months in, Mr Albanese had taken 18 trips. This was the greatest number of trips of any of the six most recent prime ministers, with Mr Morrison and Mr Rudd both on 17.

It’s worth noting, however, that both prime ministers surpassed Mr Albanese’s total shortly after the same point in their terms.

Days spent abroad

Where departure and return dates were not available in annual reports, Fact Check has relied on supplementary information to calculate the number of days spent abroad by recent prime ministers.

In these cases, the day of departure from and day of arrival in Australia are counted as full days away.

At 12 months, Mr Albanese had spent 55 days outside the country on official business compared to Mr Morrison’s 40.

Meanwhile, Mr Rudd had spent 71 days abroad, Mr Abbott 60, Ms Gillard 47 and Mr Turnbull 42.

On the date Mr Albanese made his claim, 18 months into his term, he had spent 83 days outside Australia, while Mr Morrison’s total at the same point was 62 days.

But it was Mr Rudd who led the pack with 92 days, while Mr Abbott placed third, having spent 77 days overseas.

Number of countries visited

Using the same sources, Fact Check has graphed the number of countries visited by the various prime ministers.

Arrival dates for individual countries were not present for all trips in the annual reports data. Fact Check has added countries to each prime minister’s cumulative count at the beginning of each trip.

In his first 12 months, Mr Albanese visited 18 countries compared to Mr Morrison’s 17. By 18 months, he had visited 30 countries compared to Mr Morrison’s 22.

Once again, Mr Morrison’s travel may have been hampered by the arrival of the pandemic, though Mr Albanese had already visited five additional countries by the equivalent point during his term.

Looking at all recent prime ministers, at 12 months Mr Rudd had visited 24 countries, Mr Abbott 22, Ms Gillard 17 and Mr Turnbull 15.

At the time of Mr Albanese’s claim, he was equal with Mr Abbott on 30, while Mr Rudd had visited 32 countries.

Further behind, Ms Gillard had visited 23 countries and Mr Turnbull 19.

Is tracking international travel meaningful?

Experts contacted by Fact Check all expressed some reservations about using counts to compare prime ministerial travel.

Ultimately, Dr Mills said, there were better ways to judge the efficacy of prime ministers:

“The question is how best to govern the country in all its complexity, including domestic and international issues, which is what the prime minister is ultimately responsible for (and judged on).”

In an email to Fact Check, Dr Mills opined that it was important for prime ministers to travel, labelling criticism of the practice as “immature”.

“We need to have our leaders seen and engaged in international affairs, especially during the end-of-year summit season but also … [when bilateral meetings come up] . These meetings include whole-of-government/cross-portfolio issues including defence, foreign policy, trade — so leaving it to those separate ministers is not really an option”, he said.

Dr Mills added that these trips were “hard work”, and said any suggestion that they were fun or an indulgence “makes no sense to anyone who has actually been on one”.

Michael de Percy, a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Canberra’s School of Politics, Economics and Society, told Fact Check in an email: “The [use of] quantitative measures of who travelled how many times and so on ignore[s] voters’ perceptions relating to the current circumstances.”

“A better question is, who was most able to exercise leadership from a distance?; or, which PM had a team that was able to exercise leadership in the leader’s absence?

“The perception that the PM has been absent during crises has been exacerbated by the perception of how frequently he has been away,” Dr de Percy said, citing Mr Albanese’s refusal to discuss domestic issues while overseas as a contributing factor.

Dr Bellieni Zimmermann said Mr Albanese was not necessarily needed in the country to deal with the cost-of-living crisis but suggested it was “a sign of good leadership to avoid spending public money on international trips deemed as not essential for Australia’s economic and security interests”.

“Moderation and austerity by Anthony Albanese will inspire trust in the Australian people, demonstrating empathy with those who are under severe financial strain,” she said.

Principal researcher: Matt Martino, RMIT ABC Fact Check Managing Editor

factcheck@rmit.edu.au

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Occasional Digest

Anthony Albanese says he travelled overseas less than Scott Morrison in his first 12 months. Is that correct?

ByNews Desk

The claim

The verdict

What does it mean to travel ‘less’?

Number of trips

Days spent abroad

Number of countries visited

Is tracking international travel meaningful?

Sources

By News Desk

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