Australia's federal budget papers[1], which dropped on Tuesday night, make it clear just how little attention the government is paying to its cyber policies and to good governance generally.
ZDNet has already reported how most of the Budget was pre-announced[2], with those previously-announced figures included in the totals of supposedly new spending. In reality, though, it's even worse.
Yes, the "additional $201.5 million" to help deliver the nation's disappointing Cyber Security Strategy[3] is just another part of the AU$1.7 billion over 10 years already announced[4] in August.
Yes, the vast majority of that total figure is the AU$1.35 billion cyber kitty[5] for the Cyber Enhanced Situational Awareness and Response (CESAR) package already announced with much fanfare back in June.
Yes, it's a re-announcement of a re-announcement. New is not new.
But look more closely and you'll see that CESAR isn't even an additional investment.
"This measure will be offset by redirecting funding within the Defence Portfolio," says Budget Paper No. 2.
To be fair, CESAR was something that would've been built anyway. Eventually. Probably. It was just given a shiny name to become part of a Scott Morrison prime ministerial announceable. New is not new.
Even this is a cyber throwback, according to Labor's Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cybersecurity.
"This government first announced funding for an ASD [Australian Signals Directorate] threat sharing platform in the 2016-17 Budget," Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cybersecurity Tim Watts tweeted[6].
"But you know, ANNOUNCING and DELIVERING are different things for this government. Still not delivered yet."
And all of this is spread "over 10 years", or three election