In answer to James Tizard's query, I can offer some comment on practice
within the Queensland Government space, although I am not qualified to
address any policy issues involved.

A number of 'corporatized' government instrumentalities, such as
Queensland Rail and our various electricity corporations have registered
domains within .com.au - qr.com.au, energex.com.au, ergon.com.au,
powerlink.com.au are examples.

At CITEC, we are a 'commercialised' entity (as distinct from
'corporatized') and have adopted a split personality - we have
registered both citec.com.au and citec.qld.gov.au.  citec.com.au is our
"primary" domain.  As we are also a significant network service
provider, we have considered whether we should also register with
.net.au but have not done so to date.

Other commercialised entities such as Q-Fleet and GoPrint have chosen to
register solely with .gov.au (qfleet.qld.gov.au, goprint.qld.gov.au)

My own $0.02 worth on this subject is that it would be best left to each
organisation to choose what domains they registered, based on the parent
domain policies and the identity the organisation is projecting to the
community.

Regards
John Kidston
CITEC

"Tizard, James (IEPO)" wrote:
> 
> Noting the comment below that this is a general forum for discussing
> Australian Domain issues, hoping this is not a FAQ (I've looked) I hope
> someone might be able to point me in the right direction:
> 
> I am interested in whether other Governments have addressed the policy issue
> of appropriate domains for 'corporatized' government instrumentalities - ie
> should they register domains in .com.au, .gov.au or both?
> 
> Our perhaps simplistic reasoning is that any entity that is ultimately
> responsible to a Minister should register in .gov.au.  However, as many of
> these also have an ACN number, they are also eligible to register in
> .com.au.
> 
> all constructive comments gratefully accepted
> 
> thanks in advance
> 
> J Tizard
> SA Government
>