US Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Australia for the annual Australia-United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) talks, which start on Tuesday.

Senator Kerry will be joined by US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, Ms Bishop and Australian Defence Minister David Johnston. The four leaders will sign the Force Posture Agreement, which was reached by US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier this year. The agreement sets out the framework for an increased presence of US marines in Darwin. It will alos allow the US to expand military assets over the next 25 years in Australia

THE United States will be able to build permanent military facilities on Australian soil and expand to locations across the country under a deal struck between Tony Abbott and Barack Obama. The deal – which initially covers up to 2500 US forces rotating through Darwin but can be expanded – will allow the US to bring warships, planes and troops to Australia. New bases can be set up across the country and the number of troops increased without limit over 25 years under the deal, senior US officials confirmed. A spokeswoman for Tony Abbott said the latest deal was not about increasing Marines in Darwin beyond the agreed 2500 by 2017, or creating bases. Rather, she said, it was about “logistical, cost-sharing and legal arrangements underpinning the rotational presences of US forces in Northern Australia (and) sets out a framework for consultation on how the force posture initiatives will be implemented as it moves forward to full maturity”.

Treasurer Joe Hockey, pressed as to why the NT gets so little infrastructure funding compared to the rest of the country, pointed to plans to "spend quite a bit of money in providing facilities for the American marine base here in the Territory,"

A U-S sailor has been committed to stand trial in the Northern Territory Supreme Court after allegedly raping a woman in Darwin last year. The Darwin Magistrates Court has heard from two witnesses who spent time with the sailor at a city nightclub.

The following day she reaffirmed that she had been raped, her friend said. "She said she was fighting him ... he finally took (his penis) out after about five to 10 seconds and said, `please forgive me, you're such a beautiful girl, I have a family'," the friend's statement to police read.

The former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has launched a wide-ranging attack on Australia’s “complacent” foreign policy, accusing the government of being harmfully dependent on the US. In a speech delivered at Melbourne University, Fraser said he was “ashamed” that Australia was led into the Iraq war on “falsehoods” and criticised the current deployment of American troops in Darwin. Around 2,500 American troops began rotating through Darwin for training last year, with US marines set to bring equipment such as amphibious assault craft, jets and helicopters to Australia, in a bid to enhance the US military position in the region.

They aren’t going to say ‘Canberra, we don’t like what people are doing here and we want to attack them and we want to use those forces you’ve so conveniently housed in Darwin.’ They’ll do it and we’ll read about it in the newspapers. Our prime minister will be told about it after the attack is made. Because that’s the way these things work. That, for me, is a total denial of Australian sovereignty and if we were ever independent, it’s a denial of Australian independence.

The US military has flown two Boeing B-52 bombers into Darwin ahead of multi-national war games hosted by the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

The B-52s, weighing more than 125,000 kilograms each, will form the tactical backbone of a training exercise dubbed Pitch Black, according to military officials.

Two teams made up of men and women from the US armed forces have also arrived in the Top End to take part in the exercise.

The simulated conflict will involve long-range tactics in the vast, empty airspace between Darwin and Katherine.

US Marines began arriving in the Territory on a six-month rotational basis in mid-2012 and have since undertaken joint training exercises with the ADF.

According to a statement, the rotations of US military equipment and personnel in the Pacific region "enhance US ability to train, exercise and operate with Australia and with other allies and partners across the region, further enabling the US to work together with these nations to respond more quickly to a wide range of challenges, including humanitarian crises and disaster relief, as well as promoting security cooperation efforts across the region".

Decisions on future rotations remain under discussion, the statement adds.