By AUDREY YOUNG in Santiago
If you had a feeling the Prime Minister was out of the country a lot, there is a good reason.
Helen Clark's visit to Chile for Apec is her 47th overseas trip since she became Prime Minister five years ago.
Her travel is often the butt of Opposition criticism.
She has been targeted in a cartoon depicting New Zealanders preparing bunting for the visit of an important leader - their own.
But she makes no apology for her globetrotting, saying New Zealand has to be visible internationally.
"The world would get on quite well if we never existed at all, so it is an issue of New Zealand being relevant."
She described the Apec summit as "without question the most important summit" New Zealand attended and "our big opportunity".
Figures from the Department of Internal Affairs show that Helen Clark is a much more travelled Prime Minister than her recent predecessors. In her five years, she has averaged 9.6 trips a year.
By comparison, former National Prime Minister Jenny Shipley was a real stay-at-home leader, averaging four trips a year over two years. Her predecessor Jim Bolger did slightly better, averaging 6.25 a year.
Helen Clark made a whopping 14 trips in 2002, more unusual for the fact that nine were before the July election. She wants to cuts back on election-year travel next year.
She said one reason she travelled more was that "the whole pace of international diplomacy has changed".
"We live in a world where globalisation demolishes borders of all kinds; it requires global solutions to problems; it requires getting outside the comfort zone of your own economy, country, laws and being part of something bigger."
Next week she will make a historic first trip to a summit of Asean countries in Laos with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
She has also attended the major war commemorations and kept up the practice of Prime Ministers visiting major trading partners to renew contact every three to five years.
National leader Don Brash and Act leader Rodney Hide are critics of Helen Clark's travel but agree that attending Apec is vital.
The Progressive Governance conferences of social democrat leaders particularly irk Mr Hide.
"I'm not against overseas trips but there is no doubt that Helen Clark rushes off at the earliest opportunity to any forum, particularly with her leftie mates.
"She worries about overseas opinion of her more than she actually cares for the country, it seems to me.
"You look at what New Zealand gets out of them and some of them are very marginal."
Dr Brash said he did not deplore all overseas travel by the Prime Minister but it was "interesting how many times she has been out of the country when important matters have been erupting".
He cited the John Tamihere crisis and the resignation of former TVNZ board chairman Ross Armstrong.
Helen Clark described criticism of her travel as "irrelevant".
"We have to get out and sell our goods and it is about brand, profile and image."
47 overseas trips in five years
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