Australia to spend $768m on northern bases, war games

CANBERRA • Australia will spend A$747 million (S$768 million) to upgrade four northern military bases and expand war games with the United States, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday.

In an announcement that comes amid an increasingly bitter diplomatic and trade spat with China, Mr Morrison said Australia must expand its military assets in the Northern Territory to respond to unspecified tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.

"Our objective is a free and open Indo-Pacific, to ensure a peaceful region, one that, at the same time, Australia is in a position to always protect its interests," he told reporters in Darwin.

While Mr Morrison avoided naming China yesterday, Australia's military focus on the Indo-Pacific area comes amid rising competition for influence in the region in recent years.

Relations between Australia and China deteriorated even further after Canberra called for an international inquiry last year into the origins of the coronavirus, prompting trade reprisals from Beijing.

Mr Morrison said an airstrip in the Northern Territory will be lengthened to support larger aircraft while firing ranges and training facilities will be overhauled for defence personnel and US marines. The upgrades will begin this year and be finished by 2026.

The funds are part of a defence plan that will see Canberra spend US$270 billion (S$358 billion) in the next decade to improve Canberra's long-range strike capabilities.

Australia's increasingly assertive approach has won favour with Washington. More than 2,000 US Marines are already in Australia's north as part of annual joint training activities. Australia and the US also hold biennial war games, the next of which is scheduled to begin in August.

REUTERS