What is 'mainline'?
Anyhow here's an idea.
Sell off the unprofitable international operations, perhaps to British Airways who are in expansion mode and long been coveting Qantas' routes etc. Perhaps call it British, Orient Australian Airlines Corporation - BOAC.
Nationalise the profitable domestic operations and change the name to say The Australian Airline - TAA...
Then we might sit back, look at the Wallys we've got involved with airline management over the years and ask ourselves why the hell did we let politicians muck around with something that wasn't broken in the first place?