Abbott plays down northern plan - Sky News Australia

Federal Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, says a leaked coalition plan to split Australia into different tax zones and move public service jobs north is just a draft discussion paper.

The document also suggests a Coalition Government will use tax incentives to lure private sector workers to cities such as Darwin, Cairns and Karratha, while forcibly relocating tens of thousands of public sector jobs from areas like western Sydney.

But Mr Abbott played down the importance of the plan, called Vision 2030 and obtained by The Daily Telegraph.

'The draft discussion paper which was in the papers today is only that, it is a draft discussion paper that has been put out for consultation purposes,' he told reporters in Canberra.

'But I do want to say that we are determined to make the most of our country, and that means making the most of northern Australia.'

Mr Abbott said the coalition had 'no plans ... to civilly conscript public servants', but said the idea of decentralising Commonwealth services was 'not a bad thing'.

He also dismissed the idea of separate tax regimes for different parts of the country, saying the Coalition was instead looking at 'carefully targeted incentives'.

'That's what we're looking at. Carefully targeted, fiscally responsible incentives,' he said.

Asked if the leak had been organised by his office, Mr Abbott said: 'It's not something that I had planned or intended'.

'It's a draft discussion paper which had a reasonably wide circulation and obviously, someone's decided to share it with the media.'

Nationals Senate Leader, Barnaby Joyce, said the discussion paper contained some 'very good ideas' that needed pursuing, but ruled out plans to forcibly relocate people from metropolitan areas to northern Australia.

It wasn't a question of asking people in suburban areas to pay for infrastructure in the far north, even though that's where most of the nation's income was generated, he told reporters.

'They could turn it on its head and say it's the wealth of regional areas that supports the western suburbs,' he said.

'But we don't want to turn it into an us-and-them debate.'

The Coalition wanted to turn it into a policy for the development of the nation, Senator Joyce said.

Australian Greens Leader, Christine Milne, described the plan as 'madness'.

'This is a recycled plan from Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Gina Rinehart's favourite,' she said.

'It's Tony Abbott doing what Gina Rinehart wants ... different tax laws, different tax zones, maximising the profits.'

Greens MP, Adam Bandt, said the Coalition plan needed to be opposed because it should send 'a shiver down the spine of people about the kind of brutal Australia that might come if Tony Abbott wins government'.

Labor frontbencher, David Bradbury, said the plan was 'wacky', and that the footpaths of Karratha in Western Australia would be paved in gold, paid for by western Sydney voters.

The western Sydney MP hit out the proposal to move jobs from his region, and another proposal of the plan, the relaxation of immigration restrictions for northern Australia.

'It's a policy that will say to people in parts of the country like western Sydney ... we're going to take tens of thousands of jobs from your region and ship them up into far northern Australia,' he told reporters in Canberra.

'If you want to keep your job, pack up your bags and your family and relocate to northern Australia.

'If you don't want to relocate, then we're going to change the immigration laws in order to allow the flow of cheap foreign labour into the country to fill those jobs.'