Sounds more like a junket.
Regardless of how you feel about the airshow, that is a stupid comment with no basis of fact whatsoever.
I've seen how hard the Airshows people work, especially those who look after the exhibition space, the static and hot display areas, and the media people.
The fact is Avalon (or wherever you hold it in Australia) has little appeal to foreign air forces or manufacturers unless it coincides with major exercises/operations in our region, or there are active commercial/military sales campaigns underway. It's the tyranny of distance and of having a small and widespread population base...
There is also the issue of companies increasingly being held to account by their shareholders and home governments on what they spend on marketing - witness major US companies pulling out of big overseas airshows this year (e.g. Northrop Grumman & Paris). It's just not fashionable to display your wares that can kill people and break their stuff to the general public anymore...