Economic theory simply says that the "resources" all 36,000 of them will redeploy themselves in the longer term and make a bigger contribution to the economy than they did at Qantas.
I suspect the Qantas brand name is still valuable and I cannot help thinking that "someone" wants to drive its price down and take it off the current investors hands for a song, then polish it up and slip a new airline under it.
Furthermore, the "city pair" idea is very attractive to Melbournites and Brisbanites. Frequent direct services in smaller aircraft please.