You think our governments bad...

Take a look how the Italian government has bailed out their national airline over the years. My favourite part of the article: Italy has injected about 3 billion euros into Alitalia in the past decade.

John Howard was good for something, he just let Ansett crash and burn after the small assistance they got over their lifetime. Sure it was hard for a couple of years and a lot of people lost their jobs/money, but this country now has more competition and cheaper flights than ever and a lot (although not all) of those people did find other employment.