I think opening up a TLD for .au is totally pointless and would only serve to muddy the waters.
The exisiting TLDs give useful information about the entity who owns the domain. .com = commercial enterprise; .edu an educational institution etc.
Now we want to create a TLD that identifies only a geography?
The .com.au or .edu.au is a far more valuable domain because it better describes the owner. It's interesting to see how the .us TLD has not achieved anywhere near the popularity enjoyed by the entity-based TLDs. (try browsing microsoft.us)

To open up the .au would only create an income stream for registrars (and nobody on this list would want that, surely) by selling "insurance policies" to existing 2LD name holders.
It is hard to imagine where the demand for a TLD of .au would come from, except from opportunists and cyber-squatters.

Greg

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