Morrison takes most-travelled title from Kevin ‘747’ Rudd

Labor’s ‘747’ prime minister trounced, as Scott Morrison packs in an extraordinary first year.

Scott Morrison has been on more overseas trips in his first year as Prime Minister than any of his five predecessors, including the globetrotting Kevin “747” Rudd, but is the only one not to travel to China in the first 400 days of office.

An analysis by The Weekend Australian of overseas travel for John Howard, Mr Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Mr Morrison confirms Mr Rudd lived up to his nickname and spent the most days overseas in his first 12 months in office — 71 of 365 days or a fifth of the year — and visited the most countries.

Mr Morrison arrives at the Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington DC on Sunday.

But the Prime Minister, who has placed a heavy focus on the Pacific and Southeast Asia, went on one more trip than Mr Rudd — 13 trips in total, visiting 14 countries­, compared with Mr Rudd’s 12 trips and 20 countries.

Like Mr Howard, Mr Morrison stayed away from super­powers China and the US in his first 365 days in office but this weekend he will become the first Australian prime minister to be hosted by a US president at a state dinner since his Liberal mentor in 2006.

Every prime minister since Mr Rudd, excluding Mr Morrison, visited China in the first 12 months. Mr Howard travelled there 17 days after his one-year prime ministerial anniversary.

Mr Rudd lashed Mr Morrison for not having visited China, with his spokesman telling The Weekend Australian: “Mr Rudd prior­itised building a strong working relationship with China, given its emerging significance to our economy. By contrast, Morrison has never visited China as prime minister and the political relationship has been in the freezer for nearly two years.”

Mr Morrison looks at a replica space suit at the NASA headquarters in Washington DC during a tour on Sunday.

Michael Shoebridge, director of defence and strategy at the Aust­ralian Strategic Policy Instit­ute, said the fact that neither Mr Morrison nor Chinese President Xi Jinping had visited each other was not unexpected, because of the ­“increasingly obvious strategic differences between the Chinese state and Australia”.

“That Scott Morrison is not in a rush to visit Beijing is probably a good thing,” Mr Shoebridge said.

The Morrisons are presented with gifts at the Bunker Lab program in Alexandria in Washington DC on Sunday.

“Going there should be as a key economic partner and not as a supplicant, and it should be at the invitation of the Chinese leader.

“If Xi is sincere in wanting a relationship of mutual respect, as his core talking points say, then an invitation to Morrison will come. No invitation will tell us more about Xi and his direction for China than it will about Australia.”

GRAPHIC: First-year travels

Mr Morrison toasts his host President Trump in the Rose Garden.

Speaking in Washington DC on Sunday, Mr Morrison said the lack of an invitation to China was “not something that’s closely vexing us”, saying the relationship with China was on good enough terms.

Government sources noted that in the past year Australia’s trade, foreign affairs and ­defence ministers had met a number of times with their Chinese counterparts, including in China.

Mr Morrison also met Mr Xi on the sidelines of this year’s G20, where they had a “brief but constructive exchange”. The sheer number of Mr Morrison’s overseas trips and travel to the South Pacific — the most of any of the prime ministers — ­reflects the uncertain period Australia is facing.

Mr Morrison shares a toast with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Vice President Mike Pence, during a luncheon at the State Department on Friday.

A growing number of summits and a “step up” in the Pacific have kept Mr Morrison on his toes, as well as Brexit, a need to streng­then alliances with democratic ­nations to counter China, territ­orial disputes in the South China Sea and the US-China trade war.

Mr Howard went on four trips, visiting five countries, during his first 12 months; Ms Gillard went on eight trips and travelled to 14 countries; Mr Abbott took 10 trips and visited 14 countries; and Mr Turnbull travelled to 15 countries across seven trips.