The story of the celebrant fee so far

The government registration fee on civil marriage celebrants. That sounds OK?
Most people doing anything these days have to pay a registration fee. But wait ...

Perhaps an analogy will show the logic of the argument that discrimination is relevant here.

One Government Taxi Service - Two Taxi Permit Systems

Let's imagine . . .

• there are two types of taxi drivers - male and female.
• Both types of taxi drivers offer a government transport service to the community
• Driving taxis started over a thousand years ago, originally with men providing the service
• But in more recent centuries, most taxi drivers were women because they had a lot of child and elder care responsibilities
• Last century, it was decided to have one government department to look after all taxi services and to require Taxi Driver Permits, as there were some accidents involving taxi drivers
• The new government department, not wanting to upset all the women who had originally done this role for free or low fees, allowed them to have a Taxi Driver Permit on a recommendation from their family, but men had to have at least a drivers licence.
• As using taxis became more popular, more and more families stated using male taxi drivers. Still there were accidents.
• So the government department brought in rules. Men had to have driver's licence, plus Taxi Driver Training, and prove they were "Fit & Proper" people.
• As female taxi drivers were really nice people, and overall did only half the number of taxi trips as the men, they were exempted.
• Taxi Driver Training Schools, seeing a new market for the training courses for males, massively increased in number, in numbers of courses offered and promoted the idea that male taxi drivers could earn "$ 75 per hour" for this part-time work.
• Some Taxi Driver training schools cut corners in their teaching and assessment, run cheap courses and so trained many many more male taxi drivers than were really needed by passengers.
• So many, in fact, that male taxi drivers now only have about 6  trips a year with an average gross income of less than $ 3,300 pa
• Still there were accidents involving taxi drivers, so the government decided to get "tough".
• However the strict interpretation of the legislation applied only to male taxi drivers.
• As the new rules were complex, male taxi drivers were told to contact the government department to contact the department for advice and interpretation. This created an enormous amount of new work!
• But at the end of the day, only male taxi drivers could lose their permits, if they did not adhere to these strict interpretations
• To meet their regulatory responsibilities, the department estimated that $ 4.2 million to fund  the full costs of running the Taxi Driver Permit Section, that was now snowed under with a huge work load they had created for themselves,
• The government department had new staff who did not understand the community service being provided by taxi drivers on behalf of the government, even though by now both were charging for their service.
• So on the 11th May this year, the government decided to charge only male taxi drivers $ 600 per year to keep their permits to raise this $ 4.2 million.
• This meant passengers of male taxi drivers would have to pay an average of an extra $ 90  for each of their trips.
• This new tax will NOT be passed onto passengers of female taxi drivers.

If male taxi drivers lobby for the same respect and treatment as females,

• are they being sexist against women?

OR are they just wanting the same fair deal for

• all taxi drivers, whether male or female, and
• all Aussie passengers ?

In the analogy above,
female taxi drivers = recognised religious marriage celebrants
male taxi drivers = independent civil and minority religious marriage celebrants
Taxi Driver Permits = marriage celebrant appointments
Government department = federal Attorney General's Department
Taxi Driver Permit Section = Marriage Law & Celebrant Section
Taxi services = marriage services
Divorces = accidents

When civil celebrants and their couples lobby for the same respect and treatment as religious celebrants

• are they being discriminatory against religious celebrants?

OR are civil celebrants just wanting the same fair deal for

• all marriage celebrants, whether civil or religious, and
• all Australian couples wanting to get married?