A few months ago there was an announcement about Vocus upgrading...

A few months ago there was an announcement about Vocus upgrading links to NT, linking ASC+NWCS, called Terrabit Territory.

There was also mention (and vague picture) of "the first subsea route to directly connecting Darwin, Singapore, Indonesia and the United States."
https://business.nt.gov.au/investment-and-major-projects/major-projects-in-the-northern-territory/terabit-territory

I think i have finally, mostly, worked out whats going on, there is a new cable planning on being built called Trans-Pacific Network (TPN), which runs from Singapore, to Jakarta, through Indonesia to Palau then on to the US. (can see it mostly on this site https://subtelforum.com/cablemap/ )

So it looks like NWCS could connect to TPN via a subsea connection, it would also give Timor-Leste a direct link to Singapore and US, not just Australia, which fits the Aid narrative, and good from a network topology perspective for them.

Its being funded in part by the US government as Aid, and Australia is also involved in the framework that approves such projects in some way according to a news story i read.

TPN is aiming at RFS of 2022, we might get some more hints as details about it when the Timor-Leste to NWCS link progresses.