Hello Patrick,

Thank you... and yes I have taken your points on board and thanks again for
the insight. However perhaps the essence of our concerns lies in your
comment: "However, your NFP status may be a factor.  I'm not cognisant with
your particular status and suggest you seek legal advice".

I'm sure you appreciate that as with any business, especially one reliant
(to a degree) on Government funding, obviously we have sought legal advice,
and in fact spent many hours at half-a-dozen different meetings wading
through the legalese with our solicitors, accountants, the ATO and the NSW
Government to formalise our structure as an Incorporated NFP Organisation -
as well as to identify our trading requirements and obligations.

Hopefully within this statement you can now see the essence of my concerns.
The only objection we have ever received to registering an Australian domain
name that did not reflect our business name, was based on a very loose
(mis?)understanding of our legal status. Obviously it irks me when someone
in the IT industry starts citing legal reasons for a particular decision or
course of action (such as we should register "this" business name etc.) -
because I am yet to meet anyone in the IT industry (myself included) who can
even cite the definition of an Incorporated NFP entity (or any other
incorporated structure for that matter), much less define the trading
conditions that are applicable. All I hear is loose references to Acts as
though these are stand-alone entities without any other statutory
considerations... obviously this is not the way it is.

This is where I see the house of cards... I did not realise that you are a
member of the panel (and congratulations by the way), however may I ask...
who determines the makeup of this panel?... do you have a solicitor on the
panel?... who represents all the other industries in Australia (apart from
IT)?... who is the marketing consultant promoting the .au namespace?... do
you have a business plan identifying the mechanisms for community members
and businesses to contest decisions, without necessitating solicitors and a
court appearance? The later is a normal mechanism in a NFP organisation (and
usually considered essential if for no other reason than to protect the
members). Perhaps if these could be outlined, much of the need for this
"debate" would be negated, because people (including dummies like me) would
know where to turn when we view a decision as either inappropriate or
unjust.

Cheers, Don