And to think they were given a profitable domestic airline for free and they want tax payers funds!
RATpin, I think you had better check your facts. The Labor Federal Government put TN up for sale circa 1991 - SQ did due diligence and valued it poorly such that it was only prepared to submit an offer of $115M (TN was effectively bankrupt following the Domestic Pilots' Dispute of 1989 and the board had been substantially over valuing assets on its books). The government wanted more so QF was told that they'd have to pay $400M for TN if they wanted to have a domestic capability. This was the amount that was paid and QF then invested significant money in infrastructure such as terminals etc and expanding the B737 fleet (& re-allocating B767's) to take market share from AN which previously held more of the market than TN. Prior to this purchase, QF had a commercial agreement with AN for the on carriage of their international pax - following the purchase, the pax were transferred to its domestic operation further causing reduction in pax for AN (who were also financially damaged by the Dispute).