Celebrant (Australia) celebrancy was established by the Australian Commonwealth Attorney General Lionel Murphy on 19 July 1973, when his first appointee, Mrs Lois D'Arcy, was categorised as a Civil Marriage Celebrant. Later, as civil marriage celebrants branched out into the performance of other ceremonies such as Funerals and Namings the term was shortened to Civil Celebrant. According to civil celebrant Dally Messenger III: The civil celebrant program is almost entirely the result of one man's vision. Murphy himself told me the story of how he was opposed by his own staff, the public service, his fellow members of parliament and officials of
Celebrant (Australia) been referred to as the "Civil Celebrant Program". Under the 2003 changes, all civil celebrant appointments were cancelled, and all civil celebrants to this point were re-appointed by the Registrar, in the same category as clergy of small churches, as "Commonwealth Authorised Celebrants". New appointments were usually authorised by the Registrar after passing one Unit of Competency, of a since substantially discredited educational system of Nationally Authorised Training. With a pass in this Unit certified by any Registered Training Organisation, on application to the Registrar, providing the applicant paid attention to the details of the written application, appointment as a