the big difference
Josh Cox and Spelling Nazi,
There is a world of difference!
First, not one of the investors in VA is investing so much that they are putting their own business at risk, and
Second, although they get the after-tax return on their investment, we get the economic benefit of that money circulating with Australia.
Now compare that with the Joyce strategy:
Take a bunch of Australian capital and invest it overseas, saddle yourself with about $8 billion of off-balance-sheet debt to provide aircraft, pick places with potential but unfortunately strong rules about control so that you end up with economic interests that far exceed your voting rights, hope that one day in the next 10-15 years that some profits are generated to offset the continuous cost of the Australian capital invested, manage your cash flow by shrinking your revenue-generating operations while expanding your management overheads, then disguise the death spiral by becoming a remora attached to the Emirates shark and hoping to survive on the detritus that comes your way when your host eats what used to be your lunch.
[and Emirates is guilty of little more than taking up the opportunities gifted to them by a desperate Qantas management unrestrained by a careless Australian government]
Such a wholesale transfer of economic benefit offshore but with so little public interest...