Ramin Mazbani writes:
> Q; What do you think about the Australian Domain Name Administration (ADNA)?
> 
> GREAT EFFORT		17.6%
> IT'S A SHAM		19.7%
> I DON'T CARE		7.4%
> DON'T KNOW ENOUGH	27.7%
> NEVER HEARD OF IT	5.9%

On Monday, March 30, the National Office of the Information
Economy organised a meeting of 30-35 people to discuss a
response to the US Green Paper.  A minor closing issue was
15-30 minutes to discuss the state of the Australian DNS,
and ADNA in particular.  This section is not part of the
final transcript, which is a severe problem, since it was
possibly the most important half hour of the day.  The
following is my recollection, which may be corrected by other
participants.  If anyone would seek to quote a speaker,
or represent a speaker's position, then I would highly
recommend that the speaker be contacted directly for comment
and clarification.

Luke Carruthers, as acting chair for ADNA, gave a very good
summary of the ADNA process to date.  The audience was then
asked to comment.

Geoff Huston, president of the Internet Society of Australia, and
registry for GOV.AU and EDU.AU spoke at length on the current
situation.  Geoff declared that despite the best intentions of
members, the ADNA process had failed to achieve concensus
or to deliver change to the Australian Internet community.  He
called upon the NOIE to offer leadership and assistance in taking
the process forward.

I spoke next, as registry for ASN.AU and president of the
Western Australian Internet Association.  I am a founding
member of ADNA, and a long time supporter of the prcess.
I have spent several thousand dollars of my own money in
attending the DNS forums and ADNA meetings and producing
papers and software.

However, like ISOC-AU, I agree that the ADNA process has
failed and will not realise its promise to deliver change
in the .AU space.  With the resignation of Steve Baxter,
lack of support from industry and the Internet community,
repeatedly missed deadlines, and a breakdown in communication
internally and externally, ADNA is broken. I asked the
National Office of the Information Economy to offer assistance
to the Australian Internet community, by assisting us in bringing
together the various factions in a neutral environment, and
offering a framework for real change in a timely manner.

Leni Mayo of Moniker (a gTLD participant) and Kate Lance,
of the Internet Society, also spoke in favour of this
proposal.  Kate has been attempting to liase with ADNA,
on behalf of ISOC-AU.

Luke Carruthers responded, apparently on behalf of ADNA.
Luke claimed that ADNA has significant community support,
and has already achieved much.  He called upon the government
to assist by using its assigned addresses powers, thereby
allowing real change to occur without being dragged down
by a few loud voices, which represented only a small 
minority of the Internet community.  Luke criticised
ISOC-AU for sitting on the outside and throwing stones
at ADNA rather than joining and becoming involved.

Richard Cousins, from the Internet Industry Association,
spoke next.  He echoed Luke's comments, saying that the
process was proceeding well.  Further, Richard claimed
that ADNA had the overwhelming support of the industry.

Mark Hughes, also an ADNA board member, took the middle
ground.  Mark believes that ADNA has achieved much in a
short time with little resources, but felt that assistance
from NOIE would be necessary to further advance the
process.

At this point, Dr Paul Twomey responded on behalf of NOIE.
Dr Twomey reiterated that the government's position was
to promote self regulation, and only to intervene as a last
resort.  He did not commit NOIE to assisting the process,
but nor did he rule it out.  He also closed the floor to
further discussion, since the day was already well over time.

In light of Ramin's independantly gathered statistics above,
Richard Cousin's comments that ADNA has industry support appear
incorrect.  The Internet industry has no confidence in ADNA.  The
opinions of the Internet Society of Australia, WA Internet Association,
and the participants of this mailing list seem to indicate that ADNA
has little non industry support.  With my own rejection of the process,
Melbourne IT remains as the only registry that is involved in ADNA.

Peter Gerrand pushes the same line as NSI in the US; that the
way to achieve competition is to create new domains, such
as pr.au.  This is not the case in Australia, any more than it
is in the US.  True competition in the registration of commercial 
domains can only occur in a multiple registry environment in
COM.AU.  No other outcome can be considered a success.

For a solution to .AU to succeed, it does need the support of the
community, the registries, the government, and industry.  Unanimity
will never be achieved, but concensus must be.  In its present
incarnation, ADNA, like AIR, cannot succeed.  I call upon IIA
to recognise this before IIA becomes irrelevant to the final
solution.  I also call upon NOIE to provide a forum for a workable
process to evolve.

Michael Malone