[Voted into WP at October, 2009 meeting.]

Proposed resolution (July, 2009):

Change 7.6.2.8 [expr.new] paragraph 2 as follows:

If the auto type-specifier appears in the type-specifier-seq of a new-type-id or type-id of a new-expression, the new-expression shall contain a new-initializer of the form

( assignment-expression )

The allocated type is deduced from the new-initializer as follows: Let (e) be e be the assignment-expression in the new-initializer and T be the new-type-id or type-id of the new-expression, then the allocated type is the type deduced for the variable x in the invented declaration (9.2.9.7 [dcl.spec.auto]):

T x = e x(e);

[Example:...

The type of an allocated object wih the type specifier auto is determined by the rules of copy initialization, but the initialization applied will be direct initialization. This would affect classes which declare their copy constructor explicit, for instance. For consistency, use the same form of initiailization for the deduction as the new expression.