Here in Australia we just didn't have the population to have a large global influence. We had a population of around 7.5 million in 1945, compared to the US that had about 150,000 million.

We also emulated the British centralised model, with the Weapons Research Establishment. Like the British, Australia struggled to get research out of these centralised labs and into products: computing (CISRAC, 5th computer), satellites (WREsat, 7th nation in space), ...