Yet former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said it was a mistake for Marise Payne to not have visited as a priority.
There was no substitute for being on the ground and engaging in person, he said.
"This is a hose you have to hold," he told ABC Radio National on Tuesday.
"(The Australia-Pacific relationship) needs time and attention, you cannot step away from responsibility ... the buck stops with the Australian government on this because it's adverse and contrary to what our policy objectives were."
Mr Turnbull said the outcome was "an absolute failure on foreign policy."
Senator Payne said the pandemic had stopped her from travelling but she had still been communicating with her Pacific counterparts.
A visit to the Solomon Islands "may or may not happen" during the election campaign but Australia's relationship with the nation was on good terms, she said.
"This is a strong partnership but it does not detract from the fact that governments will, of course, make their own sovereign decisions," she told ABC Radio National.
"I think it would be naive at best for Australians to operate on the basis that we can march into other people's countries and dictate and tell them what to do."
She said the Solomon Islands had assured her Australia would remain the security partner of choice and there would be no military Chinese base built in the nation.
Mr Turnbull said he had ensured Australia provided solutions to Pacific nations when China was offering to build infrastructure such as internet cables.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said war was not on Australia's doorstep, despite Defence Minister Peter Dutton's statement on Anzac Day that Australia must "prepare for war to preserve peace".
"No one wants to see a war and no one is believing that is what is going to happen and I want to reassure Australians about that," he told 2GB.
"We prepare for these things to ensure we can keep stability and peace within our region."
Mr Morrison said his government had signed partnerships with the United States and United Kingdom, known as the AUKUS arrangement, to secure Australia's stability.
"AUKUS is not just about nuclear powered submarines, it's about cybersecurity and cyber defence," he said.
"The first shot fired in any conflict is actually in bits and bytes, it's not in bullets."
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