As Australia’s relationship with China becomes increasingly tense, a new development in the Aussie outback seeks to strengthen ties with our US allies.

Details and photos of the much anticipated $747m army base expansion planned for the Northern Territory have been released to the public.

The new development will help the Australian Defence Force and United States house and train troops on Aussie land.

The project, which spans four locations over 580km across the top end, comes in the wake of increasing global tensions between Australia, the US and China.

The four new military sites will be located at Robertson Barracks, Kangaroo Flats, Mount Bundey and Bradshaw Field.

THE Territory could be considered to host new military exercises with Australian and US troops, given its current relationship with the ally and multimillion-dollar defence upgrades announced earlier this year.

Australia and the US are in discussions about plans for new exercises in Australia, including joint training with American army soldiers.

The proposed exercises would be modelled on Darwin’s annual Marine Rotational Force and would use a variety of military training areas, according to The Australian.

It is not known yet what training areas are of interest but the Northern Territory is a likely candidate given its long history with the US.

Queensland is another candidate.

THE US military is flying in its own Covid-19 supplies to vaccinate troops operating in Darwin. 

Special mobile refrigeration and freezer systems filled with Covid-19 vaccines arrived at Robertson Barracks on the eve of the region’s largest war games, Talisman Sabre. 

More than 17,000 troops from Australia and across the world are in Queensland for the large-scale, bilateral military exercise between Australia and the US.

The Covid-19 vaccines arrived at RAAF Darwin and were distributed to Larrakeyah and Robertson Barracks medical facilities to vaccinate US service members in Australia’s Top End.

A US Marine who arrived in the NT on July 8 has tested positive to Covid-19.

The woman, aged 22, was undertaking a mandatory 14 day quarantine at Bladin Village when she tested positive in the past 24 hours.

She has mild symptoms and is under the care of NT Health at the NT Centre for National Resilience.

The total number of cases diagnosed in the Northern Territory is 190.

Documents about the controversial decision to allow foreign military personnel to quarantine in a Darwin CBD hotel will remain secret, with a Freedom of Information request rejected on the grounds they could be “susceptible to mischievous interpretation” and “lead to mistrust”.

dozens of pages of correspondence between senior officials — were "brought into existence" for a Cabinet sub-committee, making them exempt under the Information Act.

The department also said releasing the information would provide a "one-sided" view and that disclosure of alternative ideas floated in the correspondence would "likely lead to ill-informed debate" about the department's final decision.