I personally don't think it's in any way a reflection of .au market interest.Since this is the #1 forum for Australian domainers, it implies there's not much growth in interest in Australian domains at the moment, or else we'd have a flood of new people asking questions (like me ).
You just need to look at all the junk dropping every day to see that the deluded speculators have already been around for years!before the rush speculators come in (if this will ever happen).