Maybe you're all just looking at it wrong.
Western countries tend to think the rest of the world plays by their rules.
How do we as a western country reconcile that this is probably more to do with the vast majority of hub traffic no longer hubbing through HKG, SIN, KUL etc, but hubbing through the UAE.
As in, this goes beyond simple business economics and more to do with nation state importance. Taking the airlines out of the equation, there's more in it for the UAE then there is for Australia if you look at it that way.