dr dre,
To an extent I believe you are correct, however with defense spending I believe they need to get rid of the middle men to make defense spending affordable, which could release funds for civil use.
As an example, my company was contracted to supply a service for the defense department through a third party. We discovered after the event that by the time it actually reached defense our price had more than doubled. I believe this is the norm rather than the exception and just one of the reasons why I accept a previous ministers statement that we couldn't build a canoe let alone a submarine.
"Soft" corruption is the norm in OZ from CAsA to defense, if Dick is prepared to take on these people he has my vote.