Northern Australia’s geo-political placement presents significant advantages and opportunities for engagement with the Indo-Pacific region. Australia engages with the Indo-Pacific through a range of ways which are formal and/or project based. This paper explores the ideas of regional integration of Northern Australia in the Indo-Pacific region around common agendas such as climate change, economic development, education, health, workforce, supply chains and workforce. It is argued that much of our existing engagement with the Indo-Pacific is through “transactional models with emphasis on KPIs, risk assessment and defined outcomes” (Tradelinked, 2022:10) which are not sustainable. The Indo-Pacific region culturally operates from a ‘relational model’ based on trust, ongoing engagement, reciprocity and culturally appropriate interaction. The paper concludes with some novel ideas to stablish a social-economic pan regional forum for deep relationships between Northern Australia and nearest Indo-Pacific neighbouring countries.