Celebrant (Australia) The program continued to progress and, at the end of 1995, was very close to becoming the mainstream procedure of contracting marriage. According to Messenger the period from 1995 to 2003 is recorded as being the most happily productive of the Civil Celebrant Movement in Australia. Funeral and Naming ceremonies, originally opposed by the majority of celebrants and the Attorney-General's Department, had gradually and imperceptibly become accepted. A group of celebrants under the leadership of Rick Barclay, a successful Funeral and Marriage Celebrant, had morphed the original Funeral Celebrants Association of Australia into an organisation which accepted all ceremonies and
Celebrant (Australia) the Honorable Peter Duncan, the assistant minister in charge of celebrants, and asked him for the deregulation of the fee for marriages, and a number of other reforms. Duncan, after several months of correspondence, responded negatively by appointing 1000 extra celebrants. This provocative action galvanised all eleven celebrant organisations to challenge the government via the media. With the assistance of leading constitutional lawyer, Professor Michael Pryles, and the abovementioned media publicity, the government responded. The fixed fee was de-regulated on 1 July 1995. On 29 & 30 August 1995 the federal government invited representatives of all eleven celebrant organisations to