As most people involved with auDA know, the “3 Amigos” currently at the helm are staunch Liberals. Stuart Benjamin (Chair), Erhan Karabardak (Deputy Chair), and Cameron Boardman (CEO) have been involved in conservative politics for a long time. The latter was a former Member of the Victorian Parliament.
I’m not making any judgement on that one way or the other; or casting any aspersions.
But a friend of mine sent me this abridged video (courtesy of ABC.net.au) of Malcolm Turnbull’s recent speech to the Liberal faithful. Here’s an excerpt.
“We must give every member a say. It is fundamental. It’s not just politically right, it is right morally”.
Stuart, Erhan and Cameron – please “listen to your leader”, and apply the same principles to auDA members. The majority of members need to be heard at the Special General Meeting on Monday 31st July.
Ned O’Meara – 26 July 2017
Disclaimer
Alright Ned, I’ll bite first.
Although you diplomatically refrain from making any judgement or casting aspersions, I’m happy to have a go.
The management of the .au namepsace is not a political play-thing.
auDA has never, and should never, be held hostage by any political collective, just as it shouldnt be captured by a particular class of members or a particular industry segment.
And yet, strong, one-sided and long-standing political affiliations are evident between a number of the people in power now.
Hirings and firings have been influenced by this bias. That automatically means you are not getting or retaining the best people for the job.
Political-style brutality, blaming, scorched-earth approaches and bullish policy promotion without consultation have become the norm.
auDA was “low hanging fruit” for the current cabal, that detected an easy opportunity for self-promotion and advancement, and juicy perks and benefits. (I have refrained from adding “and potential financial benefit”).
Enough is enough.
For the sake of the future of .au, this chaos can’t be maintained. And yet I fear it will be.
I am sad to say that I agree with this analysis. These low level Liberal apparatchiks are used to working in the stench of politics and have treated auDA as if it were a branch of a political party.
Starting with having brothers, wives, partners, personal assistants and friends join as members they then moved on to have friends elected to the board and then to unseat the independent chair. This was done in a ‘coup’ rather than simply taking a little time to mangage what could have been a graceful passing of the baton. This was followed by a witch hunt, a whispering campaign, a purge and the installation of a mate as CEO. And then, breathtakingly, the overnight transformation of an elected director into an independent one.
Of course, in the typical way of the political class, no personal responsibility is taken for this. For a while it is all the fault of the previous administration and when that proves unsustainable as a claim they take refuge in sound bites and obfuscation.
All of this is familiar territory to thosee used to operating in the political arena. So familiar in fact that these apparatchiks probably can’t see how appalling it all is.
And none of it is in the best interests of auDA which, like it or not, was viewed around the world as an exemplar of ccTLD management and is now viewed as a basket case.
To quote Edgar Watson Howe, “if you have enough sense to realize why flies gather around a restaurant, you should be able to appreciate why men run for office”.
Removing the chair will be only a first step in redeeming auDA. I hope there are some plans for what happens next!
This is my all-time favourite comment on Domainer.
And that is before I got to the E.W. Howe quote.
Would you run for auDA Board again?
@Former auDA board member
As you would appreciate, under the Corporations Act, “members” are not allowed to interfere with “management” – aka the CEO.
Where we do have the power under the CA is to hold directors accountable. They in turn should be fairly and squarely aiming the blow torch back at the CEO. After all, “they” appointed him.
But ultimately, the buck has to stop with the current Chair. That’s called accountability.
Whilst I don’t have your grasp of classic quotes, I do remember Laurel and Hardy! (Which is probably more appropriate for what’s been going on at auDA!).
The mistake people make is they believe the political talk and quoting The Liberal Leader Malcolm is useless. He is a Politician and Politicians LIE.
There is always a group within each political party who says the correct thing to appease people and make “politically correct” quotations and sound bites.What occurs behind closed doors and what happens in reality are most often the opposite. We have that with auDA now and we had it before to a lesser extent.
The “new” auDA has been called out for;
1. NOT being transparent
2. NOT being accountable
3. NOT listening to Supply and Demand members
4. Not listening to stakeholders
5. Censoring and deleting documents
6. Not following The Corporations Act
7. Not following The auDA Constitution
8. Not reigning in auDA expenses
9. Not fully disclosing auDA Board remuneration or expenses
10. Lying to members about auHQ
11. Failing to disclose to members fully the auHQ plans and business model.
ETC.
It is time for the CEO, Deputy Chair and Chair to resign. auDA is not theirs for their own gain and benefit. The direct links between people and entities may be somewhat shrouded in mystery via but it is very easy to connect the dots what is happening, who is making money and who may make even more money from the developments most members have no clue are underway.
Will auDA running the wholesale registry reduce wholesale .au prices? What is the benefit for Supply, Demand, Domain Name Registrants exactly. auDA has failed to even make a case..
Why was the auDA CEO in Timore Leste? This has nothing to do with the auDA Constitution nor his contracted role as auDA CEO. Who paid for this trip? What has it got to do with auDA role of Australian Domain Name Administration?
It is time to sack the current auDA board and the auDA CEO. Who can do it? What will it take? They will not resign due to the benefits they are all receiving in some way from their roles.
Good bullet points Anon.
However, you missed two important ones.
1. The accusations and innuendo lobbed at the previous administration and staff without any proof
2. The human cost to previous well respected staff.
To Ned and of course all the commenters above…Well said!!!