You make sensible points: Australian politicians have by and...

You make sensible points: Australian politicians have by and large huge egos, and think they are the best, but reality is they're not.

However the QAN brand destruction has occurred (and is occurring) irrespective of shockingly bad housing policy.

The one fly in the ointment for older property-pwning Australians (say 45 or 50 years of age and above) is recent media speculation that property prices may fall in 2024. At first glance this seems counterintuitive, as immigration has been huge, and demand for rental property high.

However because of deliberate Labor state governments' mismanagement in hiking costs for investors in property (I am not one), especially in Victoria and Queensland, they're deserting the market and selling up at perhaps a greater rate than the market can absorb, so eventually, hard as it seems to believe, house and apartment prices may fall.

Then we have Labor governments (who see renters as a ticket to continual government, and who dislike encouraging us to own our own home as that turns us into little conservatives politically) urging 'build-to-rent' projects that will lock many Australians into a lifetime of being subject to large corporations' multi-storey blocks' lifestyles. Nowhere for kids to play, so as you suggest, the birth rate goes down even further to say 1.63 per female of childbearing age.

But getting back to the airlines, it'll be very hard for QAN's reputation to be restored (Hudson shows no signs of knowing how to do this) so if older Australians perceive property prices are falling, they may be somewhat more reluctant to spend money on domestic air travel in particular.