Michael's description of last Friday's meeting is accurate.

The "testing for consensus" process was, let's say, highly original, with some
organisations having two votes, faxes from Japan, "facilitators" becoming voters
etc, not to mention the way the questions were constructed.

Leni.

Michael Malone wrote:

> The one promise that I had hoped to see honoured by the
> working group was that of public accountability.  Friday's
> meeting was a travesty and any result cannot be described
> to the government as a concensus.
>
> You post two proposals and ask for public comment, which
> is evenly split.   A compromise position of two classes
> of membership is suggested, which would have left noone
> happy, but could have achieved grudging concensus, since
> it offered a balance between the interests of supply and
> demand.
>
> A proposal for three classes of membership is put
> forward hours before the meeting by Peter Gerrand, the
> one working group member with the largest possible
> conflict of interest.  The proposal has never seen
> the glare of public attention.  But it is tabled anyway,
> and we now have three options:
>
> * Single class of membership
> * Two classes, for supply and demand
> * Three classes, for supply, demand, and associations.
>
> The most popular option is the first, but the voting
> was done in two stages to ensure that it did not get
> through.  Strenuous objections from Leni Mayo and
> myself were simply ignored, and the stacked voting
> was bulldozed through.
>
> First a vote was taken on whether there should be one
> class, or multiple classes.  This was split 5 to 8
> (I believe), in favour of multiple classes.  A vote
> was then taken between two and three classes, with a
> narrow win to 3 classes.
>
> So the most popular option goes down, because it would
> have empowered users far too much for the liking of
> Melbourne IT.
>
> This proposal has now gone off to NOIE, and is purported
> to be the outcome of public consultation and the will
> of the working group.  Pathetic.  We had a chance of
> achieving concensus, but now I can only hope that there
> will be enough opposition to the scheme to see it go
> down in flames once again.
>
> But to top if off, you now wish to appoint a mate to the
> position of CEO.  Are you lot for real?
>
> The position needs to be publicly advertised.  I can't
> believe you would suggest that we all recommend a few mates.
> Set some objective requirements for the ideal candidate.
> Advertise for it.  By all means use your favourite agency
> to sift through the returns.  But at least pretend to be
> open.
>
> MM