How do you know? If a third party filter is relased, should MS Office remain banned in your opinion? Let me guess, you see no value added with MS Office to begin with, so yes, it might as well stay banned at that point anyway. Am I right?
If a third party filter/plugin for ODF was provided, I wouldn't care if they continued to use MS Office; in fact, it would be a good idea, since it would grealty reduce the amount of money the government would have to spend. Does Office/Word allow for such a filter as a plugin? I sort of doubt it, since that would reduce vendor lock-in.
Also, what choices the government makes about software purchases as a consumer doesn't seem like a "ban" to me.
If such a third party plugin/filter were available, then I would have no objection to the state continuing to use Microsoft Office, assuming that the TCO was wasn't higher than switching to something else; in fact, if the TCO was the same or lower than other alternatives, it would be a good idea to stay with MS Office, since in that case switching would cost the taxpayers more money. (Of course, I rather doubt the technical possibility and/or license compatibility of such a filter, since it would cut into Microsoft's vendor lock-in).
Also, this a decision by the state, as a software consumer, which software it is going to use, so I'd hardly call it a "ban".