“MRF-D takes allegations of misconduct seriously and we hold our Marines and Sailors to the highest standards of conduct."
The exercise has taken place each year since 2015.
More than 650 military personnel including US Marines and sailors have joined Japanese and Australian soldiers for a large-scale, live-fire training exercise this month.
The exercise, which will include live firing, comprises 400 Australian Defence Force (ADF) soldiers, 190 US Marines from Marine Rotational Force Darwin (MRF-D) and 70 soldiers from the Japanese Ground Self Defence Force (JGSDF).
It started Monday and is scheduled to take place throughout the heritage-listed, 453,700 hectare Shoalwater Bay Military Training area, about 80km north of Rockhampton in Central Queensland, through to May 27.
Brigadier Michael Say, Commander of the Brisbane-based 7th Combat Brigade, said the combined arms exercise would include tank integration and live fire between infantries.
US Marine Corps Commandant General David H. Berger said he supports an open-ended increase in the number of Marines rotated into the country.
“I think the limits of that will be as far as Australia will allow us to go,” he said.
“Darwin does for us … two basic things. It gives us a place to train at scale alongside a partner at a high end.
“You can use every tool in the tool kit and press things to the limit in terms of realism.
“It’s awesome and we’re doing it with a partner who uses the same howitzer, uses the same equipment, who thinks the same.
During the Q&A session, ASPI executive director Peter Jennings said he supported the inclusion of Japanese Marines in the north Australian posture.
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.