Lodown,
You wouldn't need to look far to find other countries deluding themselves that they have capability to produce indigenous solutions to their military's requirements. An admirable aspiration but one that rarely proves to be an ecomomic success.
The fact is the taxpayer foots the bill for irrational procurement decisions that loudly proclaim that 'off the shelf' was not good enough for Australian conditions or that our forces have some 'special requirements' which no other military in the world has a need for. In the case of developing indigenous capability, there will always be some successes but at what cost? Of all the defence industry capability paid for by the taxpayer, what has been the ROI? I don't know the answer, but I can't imagine it makes for positive reading. If it were a real business, and not subsidised by the defence budget, it would have gone bankrupt long ago.
(Disclaimer: I don't pretend to know exactly what has gone on with the ALR2002)