Background: Remote Australian primary health care (PHC) services experience persistent workforce shortages and excessive staff turnover, resulting in low continuity of care and poor health outcomes: ‘We don’t trust them when they change’. While it is essential that remote PHC services reduce turnover, little is known about staff preferences for retention initiatives.
Objective: Quantify retention initiative preferences of remote PHC workers
Method: Best-Worst Scaling survey of staff working in remote Australian PHC services, using conditional logit modelling and latent class analysis to quantify preferences.
Results: 228 respondents completed the survey. Overall, the most preferred retention initiatives (and preference scores) were: provision of a retention bonus (100), additional annual leave and flexible time-off (88); support for training, higher education (79); strengthened professional support networks and wellbeing engagement (71); and higher salary (68).
Preference scores differed significantly by First Nations status. First Nations staff preferred improving First Nations leadership (100 v 39), ensuring more on-Country training for First Nations staff (83 v 22); increasing promotion opportunities (87 v 0); celebrating staff achievements (86 v 29); and increased employment for local First Nations community members (77 v 22).
Latent class analysis identified two groups who differed in retention initiative preferences. Group 1 respondents had significantly higher preferences for First Nations leadership (71 v 30) and significantly lower preferences for financial incentives such as retention bonuses (40 v 100); higher salary (0 v 92); cost of living subsidies (8 v 80); and annual leave and flexible time off (38 v 91).
Conclusion: The study findings provide, for the first time, important quantitative evidence that remote PHC services can use to design tailored retention packages for their staff. The findings indicate that a targeted package of retention initiatives may be required to influence different staff groups.
Keywords: Health workforce retention, remote health, preferences, strategies

Northern Australia stands at a pivotal moment. Major investments in energy, agriculture, defence, workforce mobility and transport corridors promise to reshape the region, yet one critical pillar continues to limit progress: the availability of safe, resilient, and rapidly deployable housing. True Northern development cannot occur without it. Infrastructure cannot operate without a local workforce; regions cannot retain families without secure homes; and communities cannot grow when housing supply remains fragile, imported, or dependent on distant providers.
This presentation reframes resilient housing as the engine of Northern prosperity. It demonstrates how a new model—built on Modern Methods of Construction (MMC-n) IP and locally run Pop-Up Factories—empowers communities to manufacture, assemble and maintain their own cyclone-ready, energy-efficient homes. With a small footprint and low capital requirements, Pop-Up Factories create local jobs, elevate regional skills, and ensure that economic value circulates within the community rather than flowing back to city-based manufacturers.
More importantly, this approach aligns with broader Northern development frameworks. The PALM (Pacific Australia Labour Mobility) scheme relies on appropriate, safe and scalable accommodation for incoming workers. A locally manufactured housing system provides exactly that—fast, compliant, culturally adaptable dwellings that support workforce mobility without placing pressure on already strained rental markets. The same system also positions Northern Australia as a strategic exporter of housing capability to neighbouring countries seeking cyclone and climate-resilient solutions. By enabling small regional hubs to fabricate high-performance panels, communities open pathways for cross-border collaboration, training partnerships, and made-in-the-North manufacturing for Indo-Pacific neighbours facing similar climatic challenges and housing shortages.
This session argues that resilient, community-led housing is not an optional component of development—it is the foundation. When communities build their own homes, they also build capability, confidence and long-term regional strength.

Background: Remote Australian primary health care (PHC) services experience persistent workforce shortages and excessive staff turnover, resulting in low continuity of care and poor health outcomes: ‘We don’t trust them when they change’. While it is essential that remote PHC services reduce turnover, little is known about staff preferences for retention initiatives.
Objective: Quantify retention initiative preferences of remote PHC workers
Method: Best-Worst Scaling survey of staff working in remote Australian PHC services, using conditional logit modelling and latent class analysis to quantify preferences.
Results: 228 respondents completed the survey. Overall, the most preferred retention initiatives (and preference scores) were: provision of a retention bonus (100), additional annual leave and flexible time-off (88); support for training, higher education (79); strengthened professional support networks and wellbeing engagement (71); and higher salary (68).
Preference scores differed significantly by First Nations status. First Nations staff preferred improving First Nations leadership (100 v 39), ensuring more on-Country training for First Nations staff (83 v 22); increasing promotion opportunities (87 v 0); celebrating staff achievements (86 v 29); and increased employment for local First Nations community members (77 v 22).
Latent class analysis identified two groups who differed in retention initiative preferences. Group 1 respondents had significantly higher preferences for First Nations leadership (71 v 30) and significantly lower preferences for financial incentives such as retention bonuses (40 v 100); higher salary (0 v 92); cost of living subsidies (8 v 80); and annual leave and flexible time off (38 v 91).
Conclusion: The study findings provide, for the first time, important quantitative evidence that remote PHC services can use to design tailored retention packages for their staff. The findings indicate that a targeted package of retention initiatives may be required to influence different staff groups.
Keywords: Health workforce retention, remote health, preferences, strategies