The federal government is getting double the bang for its buck by not having Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce visit a farm in his home region with the prime minister.
Tony Abbott was spruiking the benefits of the agriculture white paper at a farm near Grafton in NSW, in the electorate neighbouring Mr Joyce's seat of New England, on Thursday.
But Mr Joyce was in the heart of Maroons territory, in north Queensland.
The agriculture minister has clashed with colleagues in recent days, first saying the prime minister had banned him at the last minute from going on ABC's Q&A and on Wednesday slamming Environment Minister Greg Hunt's approval of a $1 billion coal mine near Gunnedah, in Mr Joyce's electorate.
Mr Abbott played down suggestions his cabinet colleague was avoiding him.
"Quite frankly we've got two marketing campaigns going today," he told reporters in Grafton.
"It would have been nice (to appear together), sure, but unfortunately he'd made commitments elsewhere when I made the commitment here."
A spokesman for Mr Joyce told AAP the prime minister's schedule for visiting Grafton had changed and it wasn't possible for the minister to change his line-up of events around Queensland to get there on Thursday.
Mr Abbott said nothing gave him greater pleasure than hitting the hustings with Mr Joyce.
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