AUSLAN Past/Present tense forms

[Don & Theresa Grushkin]

I had the opportunity to observe a visitor to our school from Australia
demonstrate some signs in Auslan.  I was interested to note that Auslan
seems to have a separate sign for the present and past tense form of DID
(which looks amazingly like ASL "WHAT-TO-DO!) and SEE vs. SAW.  I didn't
have the opportunity to talk with her about the linguistics of Auslan, much
as I would have liked to, so I'm turning to you folks out there in Oz (BSL
signers are also welcome to give their input to my questions).  My questions
are:

1) is there a present tense form of DO in Auslan?

2) is the presence of specific past/present tense forms some kind of
carryover from Signed English (the British/Australian version)?  ASL, as you
know, has no specific signs denoting past/present -- we must add the marker
"FINISH" to denote past tense

3) are there a great number of verbs in Auslan with the specific
past/present tense forms, or is it limited to only a few verbs?

--Don Grushkin