THE Greens would seek to give Darwin’s contingent of US Marines its marching orders in a bid to become “the Switzerland of the Pacific”, if the party gains the balance of power at the federal election.

But Lingiari candidate, Blair McFarland, said the Pine Gap facility outside Alice Springs could stay, under a renegotiated, demilitarised agreement with the US government.

Mr McFarland said sending the Marines packing could help reset Australia’s relationship with China, in line with the party’s policy of de-escalating tensions with the Asian superpower, including by staying out of any conflict over Taiwan.

“We shouldn’t be engaging in, sort of, militaristic posturing, even if it is good for election prospects, we should be engaged in a process that moves us into the future, so we can be safe and engaged and we can have good relations with China, like we basically did until there was a political reason to start shaping up to China,” he said.

“The Gappies down here have been here since ‘67 and they’re very much part of the community, we think that we should really just renegotiate our relationship with America, and all foreign powers.

The Marine Rotational Force-Darwin (MRF-D) Aviation Combat Element (ACE) has arrived in Darwin.

The aircraft are critical to accomplishing Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) missions and tasks in 2022.

As one of the major subordinate elements of the MAGTF, the ACE offers much more than just aircraft in the skies.

Led by Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268 (VMM-268), and joined by detachments from Marine Air Control Group 38 (MACG), Marine Wing Support Squadron 174 (MWSS), and Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 24 (MALS), the MRF-D 2022 ACE provides mobility, response, and awareness to the MAGTF.

Compared with traditional rotary-wing platforms, the MV-22 extends the operational reach of the MAGTF which will be showcased during the exercises of this year’s rotation.

F-35B Lightning IIs from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, will participate in Australia’s biennial Exercise Pitch Black, Marine Aircraft Group 12 spokesman Gunnery Sgt. Vitaliy Rusavskiy said in an email Thursday.

Pitch Black involves the Royal Australian Air Force working with regional, coalition and allied nations. It will take place from Aug. 19 to Sept. 8

Ten MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft deployed with the rotational force from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268, out of Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, will participate in Pitch Black, DiPietro said.

Marines from Air Control Group 38, part of the rotational force, will also take part in Pitch Black

Experts say a new port could replace the US military’s main fuelling station in the Pacific region after the closure of a storage facility at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.

The federal budget allocated $1.5 billion to build “new port infrastructure, such as a wharf, an offloading facility and dredging of the shipping channel” in the Northern Territory.

Mr Dutton said in November that stability in the Indo-Pacific “requires the United States to be completely engaged in the region”. He indicated in June he was open to increasing the US marine presence in Darwin and said it was in both countries’ interest for the US to expand its presence in the region.

The federal budget allocated an extra $2 billion to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and expanded its remit to include the Commonwealth territory of Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The Defence Department announced in 2020 it was upgrading the Cocos Island runway to accommodate surveillance and response aircraft.

The government is also investing $300 million in an industry precinct at Darwin for gas, hydrogen and critical minerals.

“Additional fuel storage, additional logistics, support and port facilities will enable greater flow through of American units, and conceivably stationing on a longer-term basis. Not basing, but possibly stationing at least for periods of time.

In 2021 the AUSMIN communiqué agreed to ‘establish a combined logistics, sustainment, and maintenance enterprise to support high-end warfighting and combined military operations in the region’. The location wasn’t specified, but look at a map. It won’t be Hobart.

Just south of Darwin the US is installing a fuel farm planned by September 2023 to hold over 300 million litres of military jet fuel. Although the government is reluctant to say what is in prospect, it’s obvious the Americans are going to be here in much larger numbers soon.

This all points to a need for a radical rethink about Darwin’s role in the defence of Australia and what we need to do to rebuild our threadbare military infrastructure across the north. The PLA threat is pushing south, and we need a response to it.

I understand the prime minister doesn’t want a new defence white paper or a national security strategy. There’s a view that written policies constrain freewheeling decision-making. So be it, but something must be done to instil a disciplined focus around Defence’s strategic planning, jolting it away from its fantasies about the late 2030s and towards the tough realities of today.

When there’s no time left to change the structure of the military, the need is to look instead at force posture