What I never get about this and the differences in pricing in movies, music, books, branded clothes, etc. is that this is all tacitly approved by all the governments. That Nike or Adobe or whomever can stop people from buying it cheaper in one country and then selling it at a profit in another country is frankly bizarre.
But then they'll throw a fit at each other if one country says 'no, you can't sell you're cheap bananas here' and all start blathering about free trade.
Free trade is good in everything apart from IP apparently.
The government doesn't have much to do with it, it's all contract law. Adobe makes a deal with a local distributor -- we won't sell directly into your territory, we will label our goods so you can discriminate (e.g. not provide service or upgrades for "grey market" products).
The real scandal is that the sftware (or hardware) company sells its products at a wholesale price to the local distributor that prices in support, but has not agreed not to support it, and the the local distributor prices support into the local price. So you get lousy (lousier) support and are denied mothership support you paid for.
I don't know who the local distributor is in Australia (it might even be Adobe itself -- doesn't usually matter, it effectively works the same way) but back in the good old days it was firmware design (at least for macromedia products) and if you asked for support and the locals were no help and you persisted they'd simply escalate it to the US vendor. So you paid extra for friction.
It used to be worth flying to the US to buy a Mac. It's nice that Adobe is doing its part...
Its the government that gives out copyright protections. It is the state that grant monopoly power to Adobe. The Australian government could have any rules, laws and consumer protection in place in return for this granted monopoly, and thus limit how companies like Adobe abuses this granted monopoly in Australia.
The existence of a gray market should keep the local distributor (and Adobe's region-specific) pricing down though. If it goes too high, then people will favor the gray market.
So yes - local prices may be higher. But not that much higher.
The gray market doesn't depend on contract law, since an unauthorized distributor should be free to buy up inventory however it can (eg. pose as a customer). But this doesn't work with software, and that's the problem.
When the retail price is that different it's cheaper to buy at retail in the US than from the distributor in your home country. The only reason this does not happen is IP law in the home country in direct opposition of free trade.
But then they'll throw a fit at each other if one country says 'no, you can't sell you're cheap bananas here' and all start blathering about free trade.
Free trade is good in everything apart from IP apparently.