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US military in Australia
About the author
Ryan Neelam
Ryan Neelam was Director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Lowy Institute. He led the flagship annual Lowy Institute Poll, was project director for the Global Diplomacy Index, and wrote about climate diplomacy and multilateral policy.
In 2011, former Prime Minister Julia Gillard and former US President Barack Obama announced the rotation of US marines through Darwin, a deployment that has continued and expanded since then. In April 2023, as part of the AUKUS submarine decision, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden announced that one UK and up to four US nuclear-powered submarines would rotate through the HMAS Stirling naval base in Western Australia.
This year, over half of Australians (57%) say they are either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ in favour of allowing the United States to base military forces in Australia, down six points from 2022 (63%).
