What other country in the world allows this?
Lots do, all of Europe, South America.
Eighth freedom (consecutive cabotage)
The unofficial eighth freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo between two or more points in one foreign country and is also known as cabotage.[6]:31 It is extremely rare outside Europe. The main example is the European Union, which has granted such rights to all its member states. Other examples include the Single Aviation Market (SAM) established between Australia and New Zealand in 1996; the 2001 Protocol to the Multilateral Agreement on the Liberalization of International Air Transportation (MALIAT) between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore; United Airlines "island hopper" route, from Guam to Honolulu, able to transport passengers within the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, although the countries involved are closely associated with the United States, the flag of United. Such rights have usually granted only where the domestic air network is very underdeveloped. A notable instance was Pan Am's authority to fly between Frankfurt and West Berlin from the 1950s to 1980s, although political circumstances, not the state of the domestic air network, dictated this - only airlines of the Allied Powers of France, the United Kingdom and the United States had the right to land aircraft in West Berlin.[citation needed][23] In 2005, the United Kingdom and New Zealand concluded an agreement granting unlimited cabotage rights.[24] Given the distance between the two countries, the agreement can be seen as reflecting a political principle rather than an expectation that these rights will be taken up in the near future. New Zealand had exchanged eighth-freedom rights with Ireland in 1999.
its an affront to sovereignty, NO real country allows a foreign operator to conduct point to point travel within its borders, it would be like Emirates going Sydney direct to London for example
You mean like EK going from Milan to New York ?
Self interest, at the expense of Australian lives and jobs, is alive in this idea. Besides all that, those carriers that would want to take advantage of this come from countries that hate our guts.
It is already costing Australian jobs. When you can fly a person or freight cheaper to Europe than to DRW or PER, it is costing the government and employers already a lot of money.
They had FIFO people coming in from South Africa cheaper to Port Headland than from the east coast.