Northern Australia is where national ambition meets national vulnerability. It is the frontline of defence posture, a hub for resource development, and a testing ground for service delivery in some of the most remote communities in the country.
For too long, however, the Northern Territory has been the subject of strategies, white papers and rhetorical commitments that have not translated into a meaningful Australian Public Service (APS) presence. If northern Australia is truly a national priority, that must be made real across government departments, starting with workforce decisions that determine where federal agencies live and work.
For decades, the APS has been overwhelmingly concentrated in Canberra and the major southern capitals. The latest State of the Service report shows that while the APS has grown strongly in the past few years—up nearly 9 percent in 2023–24, compared with 2022-23, at more than 185,000 employees—the proportion of staff located in the Northern Territory has declined over the past decade, slipping from 1.4 percent to just 1.2 percent. By contrast, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia have all grown their shares. Even the ACT, despite falling slightly as a proportion, added more than 10,000 staff over the same period.
The NT is losing relative ground in hosting the nation’s policy, compliance and service-delivery machinery. This decline is at odds with the government’s ambition to treat northern Australia as a national priority for development, defence and resilience. If the north is to be central to Australia’s strategic future, the APS footprint must reflect that reality.
A more substantial APS presence in the north matters for two reasons. Firstly, location shapes focus, and agencies whose staff live and work in the north are more attuned to the operational and social realities of the region. Decision-makers in Darwin are less likely to filter policy through the lens of Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra. Secondly, public sector employment amplifies economic outcomes; hundreds of APS jobs ripple through housing demand, service sectors and professional networks, reinforcing the very development that Canberra so often promises.
The Australian Border Force’s Maritime Border Command is the clearest example of a service that would be improved by relocation. While Canberra-based, it manages operations across a vast northern maritime domain from thousands of kilometres away. Relocating its headquarters to Darwin would anchor decision-making where challenges are most acute, place national leadership alongside the Australian Defence Force’s northern posture and inject high-value APS jobs into the NT economy. Its mission, protecting Australia’s northern approaches, makes it a natural fit for permanent basing in the north.
The NT’s share of APS employment remains the lowest of any state or territory. Without deliberate intervention, Darwin will never catch up, and the north will continue to host fewer federal employees per capita than almost anywhere else.
Claims that digital connectivity and modern travel make presence irrelevant ignore the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic. Remote work proved possible, but it also revealed the limits of policy divorced from place. Services Australia staff in Brisbane cannot match the insights of colleagues delivering welfare in the Barkly region. Regulators in Melbourne struggle to understand the biosecurity realities of the Top End’s cattle industry and the vulnerabilities of the Arafura coast.
The government’s commitment to northern Australia must be tested, not just by infrastructure spending, but by APS roles placed in the north. A strategy without people on the ground is a strategy without roots.
The economic logic is equally compelling. In a small, open and volatile economy such as the NT’s, even marginal increases in the APS footprint have outsized multiplier effects. A modest relocation of a policy branch or compliance unit—roughly 200 APS jobs—would lift the federal workforce in the NT by almost 10 percent. That scale of growth supports families, sustains service firms and anchors capability in a jurisdiction that needs population growth to drive resilience.
Dispersing the APS across states and territories also builds national resilience. By hosting critical capabilities in Darwin, the government reduces the concentration risk of an overly Canberra-centric bureaucracy. In an age of cyber threats, natural disasters and geopolitical disruption, geographic diversification is not a luxury but a necessity.
The federal government should set explicit APS northern presence targets and link them to the next northern Australia agenda. It should direct agency secretaries to identify functions that can be anchored in the NT without loss of efficiency, starting with the Maritime Border Command. Recruitment strategies and enterprise agreements should incentivise staff to relocate north, underpinned by career pathways that reward regional service.
These modest steps within a 185,000-strong workforce would deliver disproportionate impact. More importantly, they would demonstrate that Canberra’s words on northern Australia are matched by action. Defence planners already recognise the north’s centrality in force posture decisions. The rest of the federal departments must follow.