Australia is prioritising autonomous military technology, information warfare and quantum computing in the secretive second phase of the AUKUS pact.

Details of the second pillar – on top of Australia’s $368bn commitment to acquire nuclear submarines – have been closely held since the pact was unveiled more than two years ago.

But officials have been meeting in working groups across technologies including artificial intelligence, hypersonic missiles and advanced cyber, which Prof Munro said had been a “forcing function for winnowing down what we do” to meet frontline security needs.

Speaking at the Center for a New American Security last month, she suggested Australia was focused on autonomous technology, automated intelligence and information warfare tools, and the “very significant disruption coming” through quantum.

The Prime Minister is due to arrive in the US on Monday for a four-day trip including a prestigious state dinner at the White House.

An American Marine whose alleged rape of a woman in Palmerston resulted in his team being locked down in Robertson Barracks has appeared in court for the first time.

A 20-year-old American, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged with aggravated assault and sexual intercourse without consent following an alleged incident on Monday September 18.

His matter was adjourned until November 20 for preliminary examination mention, meaning the case could proceed to the Supreme Court. The rest of the Marines are due to leave Darwin in October

An American Marine has been arrested and charged after allegedly raping a woman in Palmerston, near Darwin in the Northern Territory.

A US Defence Force spokesman confirmed a 20-year-old Marine was arrested by NT Police and charged with aggravated assault and sexual intercourse without consent.

A NT Police spokeswoman said the 20-year-old’s arrest on Monday, September 18, was in relation to an alleged incident in Palmerston that same day.

It is understood that all Marines at the Robertson Barracks are unable to leave or allow visitors on base, with the US Defence Force spokesman saying there was a “restricted liberty status” at the base.

The Navy recently rearmed a warship with a missile at a port in southeast Australia, a sign of its increasing logistics options Down Under.

"Our U.S.-Australia team then worked together to ensure the safe transportation to Eden, where a U.S. team from Navy Munitions Command Unit East Asia Division worked with the Royal Australian Navy to prepare it for the rearm and onload it to Rafael Peralta."

The reloaded SM-2 — an air and surface defense missile — replaced one launched July 22 during at the start of the Talisman Sabre exercise in eastern Australia

The American military has taken over an investigation into the death of three Marines during a training exercise on a remote island off the Northern Territory.

NT Police were leading the response after a horror military aircraft crash on the Tiwi Islands on Sunday August 27.

There were 23 troops on board the tilt-rotor military aircraft when it went down, with the two pilots and crew chief understood to have sacrificed their lives to avert a catastrophic crash killing all on-board.

Under the Commonwealth Defence Visiting Forces Act, the Territory coroner was barred from holding an inquest into the three marines’ deaths with the initial reports passed onto the American authorities.