Defence is slightly improving in the acquisition stakes with only one major project needing an extra taxpayer funded top-up in the last financial year out of the more than two dozen audited.
The department is facing big challenges delivering projects on time with eight of its top 25 projects running on schedule and the rest running a combined 708 months late. (An additional project is without a final deadline because it's waiting for government approval.)
That's actually an improvement on 2014/15, when 18 of the top 25 projects were running a combined 768 months late.
The latest Australian National Audit Office review of 26 defence major projects tabled in parliament on Tuesday said there were notable budget underspends in six projects in 2015/16.
These included the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project because of delays in US government contract processes and unpredictable invoicing.
The first two jets incidentally will make their Australian debut at the Avalon Airshow in Melbourne later this week.
The one project that overspent was the P-8A Poseidon - maritime surveillance aircraft, which came in at $925.8 million compared to originally budgeted $717.3 million.
The report reiterated concerns about the troubled Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters, which were declared operational in April, seven years later than planned, but with a wide range of deficiencies and capability shortfalls.
The project needs extra money outside its budget allocation to fix the helicopters woes.
"The failure to quantify the cost required in an indictment on the government's handling of the project," Labor defence spokesman Richard Marles told AAP.
The helicopters have been banned from flying over populated areas with rocket launcher pods fitted because of a risk these could fall off. And nobody knows why.
Also, the Tigers can't yet operate from the Navy's new landing ships, nor in high threat environments, and aren't available in sufficient numbers to give pilots the mandated minimum 150 flight hours a year.
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