If you want to improve Internet performance in New Zealand through improving DNS infrastructure, try and get at least one GTLD server instance hosted within New Zealand. the time it takes to go to the US for the GTLD .COM/.NET/.EDU lookups is by far the easiest of those to solve.
My view of the WIX shows that Verisign actually does have the 'b' gTLD servers co-located with the Root server 'J" instance there.
Ah, awesome! From my viewpoints I don't see them, I'm going to have to harass my upstream to investigate their routing policies (Hi Chris!). UoW also seems to pick an instance announced over KAREN which sends packets somewhere in Europe (Hi Colin!). Other ISPs do seem to be picking the routes from WIX (just none of the ones I'm on do). It's a much easier solution than I imagined if it's already working for most ISPs and some ISPs just need to investigate their peering preferences to make sure they pick up the lowest latency rather than cheapest route, and/or fix their peering.
.ORG Servers are present both on APE and WIX. They provide a different set of .ORG servers locally. 'b2.org.afilias-nst.org' and 'a2.org.afilias-nst.org' respectively. Routes are withdrawn from WIX at present, it seems.
I do appear to see the Afilias servers at APE, and Afilias seems to have other instances that appear nearby (.au?)
You may not see these servers due to 'peering' policy differences. None of the DNS anycast providers are likely to buy transit in NZ and only provide the services at the IX over peering sessions, which may not gel well with the 'policies' of the established carriers.
Yup!