I don't recall any combat aircraft program not receiving the 'it won't be able to fulfil it's planned mission' press and comments. And most of those critics might indeed turn out to be true. But, if the actual orders take place after a combination of politics, secret contracts and low to no public discussion, there's more to it than just an aircraft not being able to do this and that.

In short, we are looking at symptoms ('they've picked the wrong plane') whereas the causes are much more interesting. And I can not stress the role of a public discussion enough as being a vital part of a democracy as compared to a simple system where 'up' decides about what 'down' has to pay for, no matter what. How would did Rupert Murdoch decide?  

The public discusses decisions way after they were made in their own name. Causal chain reversed? Switch focus.

I am certain the F35 will excel at certain tasks.

However it is NOT the air superiority fighter for Australia.
For many years our air force has run a split system. F-111's for ground attack and going back F4's, Mirage III's, and F18D's for air superiority.

The Howard government and chief of the air force at the time decided to throw all that doctrine and experience out with the bathwater and gamble on buying 100 F35's from a marketing brochure.

Culling the F-111 was simply idiotic, not only have they got rid of a still highly capable machine that CANNOT be replaced but they managed to export every last ounce of aviation engineering experience to the US.
It has also made us 100% reliant on the US for updates.
OTOH the USAF made a very brave but sensible decision to keep the B52's flying.

The F-111 re-engined with the P&W F119?? would be capable of supercruising with the Raptors and it's high speed performance would be astonishing. It has all the prerequisites, internal weapons bays, internal fuel and is very aerodynamic. (The F-111C has been flown at over mach 1 past it's "official" top speed.) People in the know say it's capable of playing in SR71 territory. *Now don't take that out of context, I'm in no way saying it's faster or even it's equal.

These guys really know their stuff and have been involved in past purchasing decisions. Some great reading!
http://www.ausairpower.net/