The game was given away in 1999 when John Howard stated "Australian Airlines do not need protection because they are so efficient" and opened the floodgates and the ME carriers(highly subsidised, but will never admit it who also operate from airports that they own) grew and continue to grow. John Anderson was the Aviation Minister at the time and both him and Mark Vaile spent a lot of time with the Sheikhs on Dubai and Abu Dhabi Golf Courses. The ME carriers along with the Chinese will continue to dump capacity into Australia and the only protection we have across the Pacific is the US and Canadian Governments. In fact the Canadians use Australia as and example of how NOT to run their Aviation market.
The Terms the Australian Airservices Commission operate to is cheap airfares first and a sustainable industry last. Sydney Airport is the most expensive in the Asia/Pacific with charges 4 times more than Jakarta and 3 times more expensive than Singapore and double Hong Kong. Sydney is Qantas' home base! Qantas has offshored it's maintenance jobs to LA, London and Manila so again we see the dumbing down of the airline and the hiring of Mexicans! Sydney's Padstow TAFE has all but shut down as instead of training Engineers it trains Hortoculturists and Florists! No Large engines are maintained on shore any more so should the Korean rheteric turn into something serious we must rely on someone else to look after our Jet Engines. We have only two oil refineries so we need to bring our oil in from Asia. What a mess!
Just as Australia has done with manufacturing they have privatised the energy providers and priced our own manufacturers out of the market. For each Manufacturing job there are 5 for the economy and IATA tells us that for every aviation job there is 3 for the economy. You will never see Emirates or Etihad offshore their airline because they already employ slave labour imported from India and Bangladesh and the aviation industry keeps their own economy ticking along with Building and Retail etc. Maybe we need a Trump style revolution but I fear it is too late for the Australian Aviation industry. Politicians need to make sure they stand for "National Interest" instead as most of them at the moment and make sure to ensure "Personal Interest" as their number one priority.
The only solution would be to freeze all bilateral approvals for a period to allow Australian airlines to catch up and also provide incentives to invest is new and fuel efficient aircraft. That would require vision and a foresight that does not exist in our current crop of leaders.