Personally, I think it's fine for the NDS site itself to look design-focussed (or, like a Sephora catalog). I presume that slick, modern design won't be used on every government website.

Of the Australian government websites I've used, they seem to come in both extremes; some with incredibly poor UX/design, and others with some surprisingly great design. A similarly complex task on a bad site could take 60+ minutes, whereas on the well-designed site more like 5 minutes. Makes a big difference when trying to get things done.