Simon,

sorry, but the tone of my message seems to have been misinterpreted, for which
I am happy to take the blame 'cause it was my wording.

For the record, I'm completely supportive of Michael & Geoff,
and I think Michael has done a great job producing a working
example of an SRS solution.

Let me try and highlight my concerns.

As a non-technical business person who has spent many years
working with systems, I have an absolute faith in the ability of 
technical people to deliver solutions that work.

I have a lot less faith in business people (like me) doing our job
correctly and resolving the business issues that are associated
with the systems.

But we can't pretend that the business issues aren't there.

We have got to where we are in SLDs like .edu.au and .asn.au
by having a policy that broadly says:

"These SLDs are for specific purposes"

and the existing Registrars have applied that policy in good faith.
If those policies are now going to be undermined, then much of the
work done by those Registrars over many years has been wasted.

If we're going to let phoney educational institutions into .edu.au
and get-rich-quick merchants into .asn.au via loose policy and
no controls, hey, why not start from today even before additional
Registrars start?

If the existing policies are worth preserving, then lets do so.  But they
can't be preserved solely with a technical solution.  A working SRS
used by multiple Registrars will not preserve the existing policies.

For that to happen we need to do whatever hard work is required
to develop:

Policies under which Registrars will be approved and removed
Policies under which entities will be approved and removed
for each SLD
Policies under which domain names will be approved and removed
for those entities.

That sort of stuff is harder to develop than the technical solution.

If we don't do the hard work, then the existing policies will be 
rapidly undermined.  Once two or three non-educational institutions
are operating in .edu.au, one two or three for-profit organisations
are operating in .asn.au, there's a legal precedent and any 
Registrar knocking back the next one may be in for a rough time.

Registrars have rights too - if they are going to refuse some entities
and some domain names, then there must be clear policies to
protect the Registrar's interests.  Otherwise, this is what happens:

Lets say there are twenty Registrars operating in .asn.au or 
.edu.au or whatever.  My business, ShonkyTraders Pty Ltd
wants a name in one of those SLDs.  We approach a Registrar,
get knocked back even though there is no clear and unambiguous policy,
we have signed no agreement that names are issued subject to specific
rules, there are no clear reasons why we have been rejected,
we threaten to sue the Registrar who's a small individual operator,
and they cave in because they have a doubtful legal position 'cause of no clear
policies and processes being in place.

Great, we just got shonkytraders.edu.au and shonkytraders.asn.au
registered.

We either walk away from the existing restrictions, and make every
.au SLD including .edu.au, .asn.au completely FCFS to any entity,
whether Australian or not, or we put in place clear policies & procedures
that are necessary to enable multiple Registrars to operate.  

Its not a technical issue, its a business issue.

Regards, Mark