The latest data on housing prices illustrates the growing social divide in our complex neoliberal economy with its close ties to US investment hubs. Home entertainment through the corporate streaming services is an important safety valve in communities under financial stress where families cannot afford other forms of diversionary entertainment.
Most Australian households with subscriptions extending to 3-4 platforms generated by multinational corporate networks including Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime, Paramount+ and Stan, Binge and Kayo Sports.
Netflix (NFLX) Inc is a highly profitable global streaming service. NFLX operates in 190 countries. Its profitability sits at 16.4 percent to mid-August 2026 with a global revenue of $63 billion.
Institutional investors such as the Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Fidelity Management, State Street Global Advisers are the largest shareholders in Netflix. These institutional investors are also key backers of firms involved in the military industrial complexes of the US and Britain including Lockheed Martin, RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon) Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and BAE Systems. Involvement in Piller II of AUKUS permits the sharing of strategic artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, hypersonics, and autonomous undersea systems with Australia.
The SBS (16 June 2026) shows the extent of Australia’s integration with the US Strategic Command structures:
The US military is planning a permanent war-ready weapons stockpile for its Marine Corps on Australia’s southeast coast beyond the range of most Chinese missiles, tender documents show and officials confirmed to AFP.
The development of the stockpile, a first for the Marine Corps in Australia, comes as the United States is keen to leverage the continent’s strategic location in the South Pacific to counter China’s rapid military build-up, analysts said.
The US Marine Corps began global prepositioning of military supplies during the Cold War — using floating stores on ships and caves in Norway where weapons, ammunition and vehicles to sustain thousands of troops are kept.
The first land stockpile in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to open this year in the Philippines, close to potential flashpoints in the South China Sea.
Documents published by the US Navy this month show advanced planning for an even larger Australian stockpile, with $30 million allocated to build warehouses and offices in southeastern Victoria state for “critical forward provisioning”.
The Australian stockpile, expected to reach full capacity by 2028, will be kept in Melbourne before being moved to US warehouses to be constructed next year at an Australian military base at Bandiana in rural Victoria, tender documents show.
Australia does not permit foreign military bases on its soil, a sensitive issue in a country that has a security alliance with the United States and is hosting an increasing variety of US forces on rotation at Australian defence bases.
The US Navy is engaging a global defence contractor to employ around 110 engineers, mechanics, material and safety specialists to manage the Australian stockpile, which includes “crew-served weapons”, the documents show.
“Marine Corps activities in Australia support integrated global sustainment by maintaining ready-for-issue equipment and supplies for operations and exercises across the Indo-Pacific,” a US Marine Corps Forces Pacific spokesperson told AFP.
The spokesperson declined to comment on contract details or force planning assumptions but said Marines equipment is kept at “high readiness.”
Contracting arrangements and the operation of the facility would be made in close coordination with Australia’s Department of Defence.
The sharing of advanced technology with Australia is used to justify new embargoes on potential Chinese investment here (KPMG Trendlines on Chinese Investment in Australia):
Australia is not alone in the interactions generated by institutional investor as shown by the latest profile from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA):
At the apex of this society our Labor Government is now half-way through its second term in office. The decrease in Labor’s primary vote is quite alarming, but the alternatives are woeful.
AFR Redbridge Polling Assessment (30 August 2026)
Other Middle Powers in the US Global Alliance are experiencing this interaction with US corporate investment as summarized by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The US economy is being propped up by strategic investments in the economies of loyal allied powers.
Australia has drifted to closer economic and security ties with the USA to a degree that would have been difficult to anticipate a decade ago. Waves of corporate goodwill have persisted from the Scott Morrison years at the expense of our national sovereignty.
The Pratt Factory Event in Ohio 2019
PM Scott Morrison and Ambassador Hockey were there on the scene to offer support:
Given the wrath directed by the Trump administration towards PM Mark Carney’s mainstream Liberal Government in Canada, the Albanese Government is virtually forced to maintain cordial relations with an erratic White House administration to avoid the imposition of harsh punitive tariffs as imposed on Canada.
The world waits for the outcomes from the US Midterm elections on 3 November 2026 for the entire US House of Representatives and for one third of the US Senate.
Let’s hope that national sovereignty can be reasserted soon before Australians are more fully locked and loaded into a dangerous militaristic game with our most profitable trading partner.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building on the critical issues raised in each article. Your comments on this and related articles can be recorded on theaimn.net site.
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Minister Marles would serve Australia’s future interests better by addressing the distressing situation in his electorate of Corio where almost all of the manufacturing and exporting industries (Ford Motor Co, Alcoa, Pilkingtons Glass, wool stores and textile mills, plus a diminished capacity oil refinery have lead to unemployment, decline in worker skill levels and social dfisharmony particularly amongst unemployable youth. Geelong is no longer a significant export/import port or a manufacturing city. It is a welfare dominated city. The numerous empty retail shops in the Geelong CBD attest the decline of this once proud city.
The headline and photo on this article did not alert me to the major points being made, which are how closely Australia is becoming aligned with the needs of the USA. Yes, I have heard of AUKUS (not specifically mentioned here) but the information on plans to stockpile weapons here has not had much publicity.
I am very alarmed that there is to be an “Australian stockpile, with $30 million allocated to build warehouses and offices in southeastern Victoria for “critical forward provisioning”.
The Australian stockpile, expected to reach full capacity by 2028, will be kept in Melbourne before being moved to US warehouses to be constructed next year at an Australian military base at Bandiana in rural Victoria, tender documents show.”
Does Albo have any radical spirit left from his University of Sydney Days.
Does Albo have any radical spirit left from his University of Sydney Days.
I fail to understand why Australians can be so gullible and accepting of Trump and his government.
Another episode of Australia as the 51st State