|
 Since the last National Celebrants e_Magazine, CoCA held a joint meeting with the staff from the Attorney General's Department (AGD) including the two part-time Marriage Registrars.
This meeting was held two days after the first AGD Celebrant Consultation in Melbourne, and CoCA delegates certainly considered that the AGD staff being able to hear first hand concerns that CoCA had expressed over several years was helpful to the dialogue of the day.
CoCA members restated
CoCA's position that celebrants should not be paying for the work of the MLCS as they are not the beneficiaries of the program
- raised concerns about the lack of prior consultation with celebrants
- the discriminatory nature of the "professional" fee
- the fact that the vast majority of celebrants can only work part-time as marriage celebrants supported by statistics in the RIS and previous years
- the inability of celebrants to pay such a high fee for part-time work
- the ability to pay a fee not being related to the professional competence of the celebrant.
CoCA members argued the need for a educative and preventative approach to problem solving; and discussed options IF "cost recovery" was a prime aim and non-negotiable.
Other strategies were discussed, to increase professionalism at no extra cost to the AGD, that would reduce the workload of the MLCS and thus reduce the MLCS budget needs. CoCA members strongly supported the need to use IT and web based strategies for general public education, data collection, program planning, compliance monitoring, increasing professionalism and increasing the efficiency of the MLCS.
Sincee then CoCA delegates have worked upon a number of projects.
Cost Recovery and Increased Professionalism
The main one being the Coalitiion of Celebrant Associations (CoCA)'s submission to the AGD on the Budget Announcement of a "Professional Celebrant" Fee, increased professionalism and cost recovery of the AGD monies spent on appointment and regulation of Commonwealth Appointed Marriage Celebrants
We had hope to bring celebrant readers a final list of recommendations of that COCA would be making to the AGD, however the process has not quite been finalised. To prepare its submision, CoCA
- spent the bulk of its face-to-face meeting in Melbourne in October on outlining an overview of its submission
- established a taskforce to work on the details of it recommendations and rationale for each
- reviewed the first draft of the detailed submission, for that the taskforce could refine this further
- is now reviewing the final draft of its submission prior to a vote by all the delegates of the 13 associations that belong to CoCA
There is much to be said about
- the Marriage Act, Regulations, administrative processes and this "Celebrant's Fee", and
- their relationships to Cost Recovery
- the delivery of the Marriage Celebrant Program and Marriage services BY the government TO the Australian public
- via civil and religious celebrants whether they are independent one or part of a recognised religion or state government department.
CoCA delegates decided to concentrate in this submission predominantly on the AGD and the Marriage Law and Celebrant Sections (MLCS) administrative processes and this Celebrant Fee and their relationships to Cost Recovery. To this end, consideration is being given to recommendations on the following:
- Guiding Principles
- Capping numbers
- Conflict of Interest
- Pre_Training Processes
- Celebrant Training
- Pre-Appointment Assessment
- OPD Compulsory
- Upgrade of MLCS systems to Computer, Web & IT based
- Celebrant Queries & Compliance
- Support for Celebrant Associations
- Support for Public Information on Marriage
As most celebrants would be aware, the period for consultation has closed for submissions from celebrants. The National e-Magazine hopes to be in a better position to bring you more details of the final CoCA submission in its next issue.
Copyright Licence
CoCA delegates voted to support a CoCA-CAL Celebrants Group Copyright Licence that would allow CoCA association's celebrant members to access via their CoCA association, rather than having to take up the much more expensive Sole Traders Copyright.
Most members of CoCA associations will know about this project by now. But this means that all celebrants should be able to access Copyright cover for around $45 to $50 plus the cost of the associations fees.
Rona Goold
CCN Inc Delegate to CoCA
CCN Inc Chairperson and
ACCN Coordinator
|
