Mstr Caution made the obvious observation of their attempt to use Darwin as a launching pad and how that has failed
I actually think Darwin is a great example of where government policy has really harmed Qantas/Jetstar.
Consider Malaysia where the government has bent over backwards for Tony, and is spending gazillions on the new (admittedly late) klia2 terminal and still promising super-low terminal charges.
Or Singapore Airport, where again the government owned airport, quickly built a budget terminal, moved airlines back to the main terminal when space became available thanks to completed renovations and is now building a higher quality yet still budget Terminal 4. This will undoubtedly help Tiger, Scoot and indeed Jetstar Asia....
Yet in the backwaters of Australia.
We have the privately owned Brisbane Airport that doesn't want to invest in a 2nd runway unless the airlines kick in now for fees, and a privately owned Darwin Airport who when offered an opportunity to substantially increase flights and facilities instead came up with one of the highest charges of any Australian airport reportedly and said that you need to pay for terminal expansion.
All of these things undoubtedly hurt home based airlines more, by virtue of the relative number of flights they have in Australia.
That's before we get into things like depreciation policies.