Qatar is a partner, but still is their own business and is there to make profits, not to give planes away for cheap.
Bringing a new aircraft type into their fleet is time consuming and extremely expensive. To use it on domestic flights and then international is silly, especially with crewing costs for a small airline like VA.
US market is oversaturated as it is, and more completion will result in no profit for VA if they decided to fly, especially if it's from one Australian port.
