US Military Presence and Mass Incarceration Intensifies in the Northern Territory

Most Australians are aware that the US military has a presence in the north of the continent, although many would be dumbfounded by the extent of Washington’s current soft colonisation of the region, and there are further circumstances raising eyebrows about the Northern Territory, which is the Finocchiaro ministry’s law-and-order drive, and the two appear to be working in tandem.

US military thinktank the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments produced a report on Northern Australia’s Role in the Australia-US Alliance, which insists that if Australia is going to stay relevant in the present Indo Pacific, at a time when Chinese military power is on the rise, then our government must ensure that this “critical piece of real estate” now “be fortified into a stronghold”.

“Northern Australia can serve as a venue where friendly forces train and experiment in peacetime, as the base from which they deploy, and as a hub that sustains them in wartime,” writes the CSBA, as it reimagines the Northern Territory as a playland for US marines. This assessment from some overseas thinktank, too suggests this country needs to invest “to sustain operations in a protracted conflict”.

Just to give something of an idea of the floating US army base this continent is becoming, 2,500 US marines are stationed in Darwin, soon six nuclear-capable B-52 fighters will be on the ready there, a joint US-UK nuclear powered submarine force is being establish off the coast Perth on Noongar land, while Washington’s most important nondomestic intel facility Pine Gap is in the Red Centre.

Much of this has been underway over the last decade, but momentum is now growing, and while constituents have been looking on aghast at the NT Country Liberals government’s first 12 months in office, as it has enacted a swag of tough-on-crime laws that have facilitated a crackdown on the domestic population, this isn’t as confusing when achieving a fortified stronghold is the end goal.

A mass incarceration territory

The Finocchiaro government’s law-and-order drive has been severe. This was already occurring in a jurisdiction known to have a particularly harsh criminal justice system, which gained global notoriety mid-last decade when the ABC exposed Indigenous kids being tortured by grown adults, referred to as ‘youth justice officers’, at the then Don Dale child prison.

All Australian jurisdictions overincarcerate First Nations adults and kids. But, as the NT population is made up of 26 percent Aboriginal people, which is far higher than elsewhere, this means its disproportionate incarceration rate far outstrips other jurisdictions in settler colonial Australia. 

In fact, if the Territory was a country, its prison rate would be number two globally, just behind chief incarcerator El Salvador.

Of the 2,686 adult prisoners in the NT in the 2025 March quarter, 2,373 of them, or 88 percent, were First Nations adults. Sydney Criminal Lawyers has noted over the years that the NT child inmate statistics usually show at least 90 percent of children in NT kiddie prisons are First Nations youth.

On its second day in office last October, the Finocchiaro ministry produced five bills that wound back the clock on criminal and social justice in the Territory, as the laws made the bail regime tougher and apply equally to kids and adults, child breach of bail was reinstated, the age of criminal responsibility was dropped back down from 12 years old to 10, and public drunkenness was re-criminalised.

By February 2025, 40 Aboriginal people were being taken into custody on a daily basis. There have been other extreme developments, such as laws criminalising poverty, which see people with dirty or stained clothing not allowed on buses, and further transport and housing inspectors are going to be armed with guns, while constituents are being prepped to arm themselves with pepper spray.

And this heightened crackdown has resulted in a 44 percent rise in adults on remand, or incarcerated pre-conviction, along with a 57 percent rise in youths on remand. Politicians and advocates are calling for a federal government intervention. But Albanese is ignoring the situation. And chief minister Lia Finocchiaro shrugs off criticism like she has license to implement her drive.

A fortified stronghold

In the fifth edition of his Militarism in the NT Newsletter, Jorgen Doyle points out that the CSBA suggests enhancing US militarisation in NT, with the bill foot by the Australian government, and this is the same US thinktank that released a 2013 report on the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia, then recommending “that northern Australia ‘become a supportive sanctuary for US forces’”.

These earlier recommendations related to the Labor Gillard government agreeing in 2011, to host three US force posture initiatives: marines in Darwin, increasing interoperability between air forces and a classified list of local military bases and areas that the US military has unimpeded access to and can take control of when upgrading.

These arrangements were then formalised by the Liberal Abbott administration under the 2014 Force Posture Agreement.

The September 2021 launch of the AUKUS agreement, with the promise of eight Australian-owned nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs), increasingly appears to be a way to expand US presence in northern Australia, as it looks towards a coming war on China with the top end a key place to launch the conflict from.

The US is also looking for somewhere to dump nuclear waste and easily extract key mineral resources via special priority access. Washington is also extracting funds from this nation to invest in its submarine building capacity, it will be stationing Submarine Rotational Force – West at WA’s HMAS Stirling, and the nation is left pondering where the US will base an SRF – East.

Doyle further cites socialist journalist Peter Symonds as describing the 2013 CSBA vision as “chilling” in its detailing of “basing arrangements, missile ranges, submarine transit times, aircraft types and infrastructure requirements, as well as the tactics and strategy of battle” and this all underlined “the advanced character of the US preparations for conflict with China”.

Symonds then suggested the war against China will occur in the coming years, not decades. This would align with SRF – West being rolled out in two years’ time, and the first US troops to run this submarine force will soon be moving to WA, with Australia to supply US troops with public housing.

The AUKUS submarines, which both the US and the UK can renege on at any time, aren’t slated to start appearing until the gravest war of all is likely already underway.

No free, prior and informed consent

If the US is planning on turning the NT into a fortified stronghold, then it would make sense for the NT authorities to be running an incarceration drive to ensure that the sovereign peoples, who are already having their lands increasingly encroached upon by the fossil fuel industry, aren’t in a position to substantially resist any heightened militarisation being rolled out.

This is also supported by the fact that the Queensland Liberal National Crisafulli government, which also came to power in the latter half of last year, has unleashed its own crackdown on its domestic population.

Crisafulli has enacted two rounds of adult crime, adult time laws that are so extreme that youths who are arrested over certain serious criminal offences are facing the same penalties as adults. So, in that state, it is now possible for a 10-year-old to be held on remand, whilst facing certain charges that carry up to life imprisonment.

As per the increasing interoperability of air forces and the unimpeded access of certain air bases, the US has on a number of occasions over the last 12 months, refuelled its fighter jets flying from the US state of Missouri on their way to the Middle East in either Queensland or the Northern Territory. And late last year saw the announcement that Japan will now be stationing troops in the top end as well.

So, if the US thinktank’s intuition is anything to go by, as it was a decade ago when it foresaw the growing encroachment of the force posture initiatives onto Australian soil, which have always been about warring on China, then the US is planning on turning the NT into a fortified stronghold, and the Finocchiaro government appears to be clearing its way via the mass incarceration of local peoples.