CoCA representatives are concerned that:

• the Attornery-General's Department appears reluctant to increase the traning standards despite having raised $2.4 million from our Commonwealth celebrants through Cost Recovery from 1st July 2014.
  
  The rationale given by the Department  is that considerable time, effort and cost would be needed to justify a change the Regulations to support better training.
  
  This appears contradictory given the justification for the imposition of annual fees on this Subdivision of celebrants was the Department's concerns about poor standards.
  
  The Department of Finances' Cost Recovery Guidelines require the monies raised to be used only for essential regulatory services, rather than maintaining a system that allows ill-equipped people to be registered as marriage celebrants, which in turn would increase the regulatory costs across other private practitioners in the industry.
  
  
• the Department also appears reluctant to a compromise proposal that the Department nominate a portion of the Diploma (equivalent to a Certificate IV) for registration of independent celebrants to solemnise marriages, which is understood to require less staffing resources/ cost.
  
  The industry skills councils funded by government to train people for job roles and are tasked with ensuring that qualifications meet primarily the needs of industry workers who will use the training to gain employment or create self-supporting work as private practitioners/sole traders.
  
  Thus the pressure of a Government Regulator on an industry skills council to limit the training to only their requirements would not be fair.

Celebrant training not uniform

Only Commonwealth Independent Marriage Celebrants (currently 8850 celebrants) are required to complete some mandated legal and other training to be registered to solemnise marriages.

This is a major anomaly for our industry.  Religious celebrants (currently 22713 celebrants) are not required to complete any training in Australian marriage law nor are the growing number of government staff members employed by state/territory Births Deaths & Marriages offices (currently 602 staff members).

In 2002, Attorney Daryl Williams assured celebrant associations that the industry, not Departmental staff, would determine their own training needs.

Certainly the Marriage Act does not interfere determining the training qualifications for the other two subdivions of marriage celebrants -  the Recognised Religions or Registry Offices.

This is how it is with other industries even when there is some aspect that is impacted or regulated by legislation.

CoCA representatives are hopeful that the Department will find a solution that supports the industry and the Australian public's needs as related to services provided by independent celebrant practitioners.

For details on the proposed training qualification: COCA 2015 recommendations for celebrant training