Simon Hackett wrote:
> 
> I would appreciate an answer to the following suggestion of mine (and
> subsequent words of support from Boz Cappie as below). I think it is the
> fairest way to address the renewal situation - fairest for all concerned. I
> have discussed this with others who also agree that the logical thing to do
> with existing com.au registrations is to simply leave them alone until (any)
> defined event which causes them to be re-registered, but to otherwise take
> no action to change (or remove) existing com.au names prior to any
> re-registration of same.
> 
> A reply on this topic would be most welcome from Melbourne IT as it has now
> been over a week since this mail was sent and the issue is quite, quite
> important and very timely.
> 
> Regards,
> Simon Hackett
  
Simon

My response is essentially the one I gave to the first of Geoff Huston's
"4 Questions" last month, viz.

> 1. Why the relatively rapid timetable to charge existing holders of
>    domain names [for renewal of registrations]?

We have two strong motivations: technical and commercial.
As the COM.AU DNA we need to validate and update the DNS as soon as
possible, so we can carry out our job without making serious mistakes
through relying on badly out-of-date and incomplete data in the DNS. 
Currently AUNIC is both incomplete (in allocated DNs) and unreliable
(for administrative and technical contacts). The fact that AUNIC only
allows each administrative contact to belong to one organisation, when
in reality, they can belong to several, means that we cannot properly
test whether the specified administrative contact in applications is
indeed the true admin contact for the organisation. We are also told by
several ISPs that many of the administrative and technical contacts
listed in AUNIC are out of date. As the COM.AU DNA, we need to obtain
reliable, up-to-date information on all our customer admin contacts, 
and we can best achieve this through a complete re-registration process. 

The commercial discipline of having to pay to renew DNs will sort out
the "live" from the "dead" DNs, and cause the administrative and
technical contacts to be updated in the process. We shall work with
PISPs and other ISPs to validate their records during December-February
and produce a reliable DNS. 

Might I add that I do not believe it is practical to have competing DN
Administrators working safely in the com.au domain until the current DNS
is validated by this means.

PG