The sad truth is Australian defence procurement, with the exception of a very small number of usually FMS based projects was a complete mess from the late 90s. It was almost completely lacking in strategic or holistic analysis or thinking, was highly reactionary and unbelievably politicised. Little, if any thought was given to actual long term objectives let alone capability development and what lip service was given to industry capability had more to do with the Govt. fluffing up assets with new contracts prior to sale rather than delivering required capability to the ADF.
Project after project, that had been intended as minor upgrades or life extensions to get existing capabilities through to a specific point where a permanent solution would be available grew to become the grossly over budget, behind schedule underperforming, permanent solution. Real solutions were cancelled without replacement or with substandard replacements, capabilities lost and so much money wasted it beggars belief. Always trying to be clever and pretending that just because it cost a lot and has a new paint job that something is good was the name of the game. PBs instead of corvettes, upgraded FFGs instead of new DDGs, upgraded ANZACs instead of new FFGs, Seasprites even though the corvettes they were intended to operate from had been cancelled. The M-113 upgrade is one of the worst, it took a still useful vehicle out of service and spent over a decade turning it into a marginally improved vehicle that in comparison to what is available today is even more outdated than it was before the upgrade. They project delivered so little so late that we would have been better off retiring them without replacement.
In comparison, NZ has, on a much smaller budget, achieved much better value for money over the same period. NZs biggest issue has been a lack of money, Australia's may well have been too much money combined with a complete lack of vision.
