In some cases it's true that excessive/wasteful government spending is just another kind of business subsidy. A well-known example is the US space program, which basically exists just to keep some specialised defence contractors afloat in between wars.
The problem I see with Australian government (or any foreign government) overspending on IT, is that much of that money goes off-shore back to US-based IT vendors like Microsoft. It isn't "recycled" back into the local economy.
And an obvious support of US based IT vendors, is the use of Google's I'm not a Robot test, a streetview surveillance category program disguised as AI training?
But then when considering US antivirus spam filter vendors necessitated the need for I'm not a Robot, was/is this simply the US shaking down the rest of the world or at least western civilisations to dominate like the US does in NATO?
The problem I see with Australian government (or any foreign government) overspending on IT, is that much of that money goes off-shore back to US-based IT vendors like Microsoft. It isn't "recycled" back into the local economy.