Funeral celebrant some words spoken at the graveside by members of the Communist party. In general, funerals were considered to be the province of the clergy - even for unbelievers. For example, many funerals for non-believers were performed by the Salvation army. Dally Messenger III records that this first celebrant funeral was for Helen Francis (née Grieves) on 2 July 1975 at the Le Pine Funeral Parlour in Ferntree Gully, a suburb of Melbourne in the state of Victoria. Helen Francis was a young woman who had engaged Messenger as a celebrant for her wedding to Roy Francis some four weeks previously.
Celebrant (Australia) fee, those who stayed practising marriage celebrants did far too many marriages to earn enough remuneration for their personal needs. Despite Lionel Murphy’s clear declarations to the contrary, some powerful public servants began to classify the office of marriage celebrant as a "community service" which led to a further deterioration of professional standards. Says Messenger: "… the public service and the government had all but destroyed the Civil Marriage Celebrant Program by freezing the fee, forcing down standards and frustrating the good celebrants out of the business." Despite these debilitating policy initiatives, a minority core of celebrants sustained high standards.