Not a waste of money at all in my book - train all Aussie and Kiwi military pilots up to wings in a tandem seat fast-ish aerobatic machine capable of a decent hi-lo nav, then you'll have a good pool of pilots with flexible posting and surge capability rather than a bunch of streamed, locked-in aircrew who can't do anything but their own job.
Go for it Kiwis I say, and it'll probably give the RAAF planners a bit of a kick start when it comes to finally picking the Aussie replacement training platform/s too.