Emirates has the domestic market it has long craved:Australia and the Qantas domestic Network.
Yep, my bet would be that the tie up would mean Emirates has a ready made domestic feeder in Australia and New Zealand. Both these populations spend a lot of money on international travel and are also massive tourist markets.
There are 22 million people in Australia, with EK flying to PER, ADL, MEL, SYD, BNE gives them access to 14million of them.
Is it worth it to EK to get access to the other 8 million.