I really don't understand suggestions to nationalise, or the government to take back Qantas. Not sure how much it would cost to "bail out" QF, but if the aim is to support tourism why not just hand out travel vouchers to all taxpayers? Government involvement should be restricted to levelling the playing field with VA (ie change or remove Qantas Sale Act).
Aside from vested interests around FF points (mine included), why should the government bail out QF? It seems the arguments are mainly sentimental, and it wouldn't be precedent setting for an airline like QF to disappear (Ansett, Pan Am, TWA?). It seems that QFd is still OK (if only they would abandon the "line in the sand" and go back to a comfortable profit maximising duopoly rather than trying to destroy the competition). It seems QFLink is OK. The real problem child (if we are to believe what we are told by the company) is QFi. I will play devil's advocate - and put aside QFF interests - does Australia need QFi anymore? It has pretty much abandoned PER and ADL, so they don't need it. MEL and BNE probably would do OK without it plenty of other carriers serve those two ports, perhaps SYD would suffer most, but then again is still the most attractive airport for other carriers. Really there are only three important "routes" it serves extensively that would significantly impact air services between Australia and the world - the US, South America and South Africa. With the US, I am sure others would eventually step in, but JNB and SCL could be more problematic, as they are (economically) four-engine destinations, and four engine planes are becoming less and less common.
Anyway just playing devil's advocate! I still think the QF crisis has been over-dramatized for (probably well founded) political reasons around QF Sale Act.