Batman,
Australians, like the Canadians, have a lot of airspace to cover. Therefore they need long range interceptors to secure their borders. Rather than seek this out they’ve settled on high performance fighters with short legs. They could have operated such interceptor aircraft made by either of their closest allies, the UK and the US. I wonder why they did not. Maybe it’s because, unlike Canada, they aren’t directly aligned against a nuclear power. Or maybe it’s because they themselves don’t feel they are targeted by missiles from nuclear powers because they themselves do not proliferate such weapons.
Not directly aligned against a nuclear power? Have you heard of ANZUS, Pine Gap, North West Cape or Nurrungar for example? And what about superpower involvement in the Korean and Vietnam wars?
As a result of geography Australia was never threatened by Soviet bombers, and what good is a purpose built interceptor against an ICBM?
The Mirage III probably gave the RAAF 90% of the interceptor capabilities of the F-106, but without the added cost and complexity of the MA-1 fire control system, that was after all of limited use in the Australian context (Australia had no equivalent to the US’s SAGE network). The III also added a ground attack capability, which was critical given the spectrum of conflicts Australia faced in the region.
The need for a multirole platform probably later drove the selection of the F-18 later on. As a small air force already operating fighter and long range strike platforms, I suspect the RAAF would not have been keen to fracture their resources further by adding specialist interceptor aircraft.
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