Councils in the northern part of the country are pushing for a range of Federal Government services to move to regional centres.

The cities of Townsville and Cairns have made recent submissions pushing for Canberra-based public service jobs to be re-located.

Warren Entsch, the chairman of an inquiry into the development of northern Australia and the member for the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, says regional cities like Townsville and Cairns in Queensland, Kununurra in West Australia and Darwin have plenty of attractive points.

These areas are constantly concerned that Federal eyes do not look far enough north, and often see decisions made in Canberra using assumptions not reflected in reality.

“The house prices are a hell of a lot more affordable here than in Canberra and we don't have the gas bills in winter,” Mr Entsch said on Thursday after the ides of importing bureaucrats was raised at a meeting.

“Given the choice, I don't think you'll find we have to force people here - we'd have no problem recruiting the numbers we require,” he said.

The Queensland cities of Townsville and Cairns are struggling under the weight of high youth unemployment, and say the thousand sof potential jobs would be a great boost to the local economy.

A submission by the City of Townsville said its proximity to Papua New Guinea and other Pacific countries could be used to set up more regional trade.

There are already about 1500 federal public servants working in Townsville, mostly classified APS 2 to 6, but most executives remain in Canberra.

The submission said Townsville would be a good place for public servants in tourism, energy and resources departments.

Townsville's business chamber ranks relocation of public servants as the second most important economic possibility, behind increasing the local power supply.

Mr Entsch said it was “not about picking up half of Canberra and moving it to northern Australia” but rather would look to shift satellite groups of workers.

The City of Cairns wants to get involved too.

“With a growing research and teaching capacity at James Cook University, benefits may also accrue to Defence from the relocation of its malaria and dental units to Cairns to capitalise on the growing local research capability,” its submission said.

The City says Cairns would be a great home for staff from Australian Customs, CSIRO and the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service.

The suggestions are not likely to wash well with the public servants currently employed in Canberra, who say that they do not want to have to travel thousands of kilometres to keep their jobs, and are concerned at the potential travel expenses if departments are split so far apart.

Kennedy MP Bob Katter, who is not part of the inquiry committee, says having all the power in Canberra is counterproductive.

“Joh Bjelke-Petersen said repeatedly that Canberra is a roads department that does not build roads, a health department that does not provide health services,” Katter said.

“At present we need an engineer to build roads, another tier of engineers to make submissions to Canberra, then another tier in Canberra to handle the submissions, trebling the costs of road building.”