There's more evidence of a growing American military presence across northern Australia, with a new U.S. Air Force "mission planning" and operations centre to be built in Darwin. US budget documents uncovered by the ABC reveal Washington is planning to spend over half a billion dollars on infrastructure in the Top End over the next two to three years.
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00:00 For the first time, we're learning precisely what the United States Air Force is looking
00:07 at building in Darwin over the coming years.
00:10 There have been broad hints given already in various defence documents and statements
00:16 made by the US and Australia.
00:19 But what we've uncovered in these budget filings in Washington and procurement documents is
00:24 a new squadron operation facility for the US Air Force.
00:29 It will include facilities for maintenance, mission planning, intelligence briefings and
00:35 crew briefings as well.
00:38 And it's a real sense of the scale of what the US has planned for its operations in Australia's
00:46 top end.
00:47 Of course, last year there was another similar revelation from US documents revealing that
00:53 the United States military was going to build permanent facilities to house up to six B-52
01:01 nuclear capable bombers at the RAAF base Tindal.
01:05 Well, these latest revelations are to do with what's planned for RAAF base Darwin.
01:11 Now, Andrew, these revelations, what have they prompted in terms of questions around
01:16 Australian government transparency on defence matters?
01:20 Yeah, there's been a little bit of criticism today from, first of all, peace activists
01:25 who say that this will drag Australia closer to any potential armed conflict between the
01:33 United States and China.
01:35 But those activists are really ramping up their calls at the moment for Australia to
01:41 ease off with these plans with the United States, the gradual build up, the marine rotations,
01:47 that sort of thing.
01:49 Let's hear from the Independent Australia Peace Network, who have been speaking today
01:56 in Darwin.
01:57 The big picture is that as the USA builds these war fighting bases in the NT, we lose
02:03 a chance to say we'll opt out of whatever conflict they choose next.
02:09 So that's the perspective of local peace campaigners.
02:12 But on the other side, people within the defence community, while somewhat supportive of this
02:18 build up, say that the details shouldn't be being released from documents in the United
02:24 States.
02:25 They're calling on the Australian government and defence department to be a lot more transparent
02:29 about these sorts of plans.
02:31 They say it's just absurd that these details have to be discovered via US congressional
02:37 documents.
02:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]