Marriage Celebrants E-bulletin May 2002
Welcome to the 2nd edition of the e-bulletin for marriage celebrants.
We encourage you to distribute this e-bulletin to your members and/or to other parties likely to have an interest. Permission to re-print any part of this e-bulletin is provided subject to your agreement that its contents are not edited or changed.
Please advise Wendy Spicer by email (wendy.spicer@ag.gov.au) if you would like to change the email address used for this e-bulletin. Alternatively, please ring the Marriage Celebrants Section (02) 6250 6496 and advise your preferred email details.
Update on the progress of the Marriage Amendment Bill 2002
The Senate is yet to debate the Bill. We will advise you of any further progress with the Bill as it occurs.
Update on the draft training unit
A teleconference was held on 23 April 2002 with members of the Marriage Celebrants Industry Reference Group to discuss the progress of the draft training unit.
11 responses/comments on the draft unit were submitted. Those comments are still in the process of being analysed and will be incorporated, where possible, into a final draft unit.
A revised draft unit will be submitted to members of the Marriage Celebrants Industry Reference Group as soon as possible.
Copyright
Following a request for information from a celebrant, we have recently sought advice from the Intellectual Property Branch of the Attorney-General's Department regarding copyright and how its application may affect certain activities undertaken by marriage celebrants.
We will distribute the advice as soon as practicable following receipt.
Re Kevin
The full bench of the Family Court has yet to reach a decision in the appeal in the Re Kevin matter. This is the case that concerned the validity of a marriage of a post-operative trans-sexual. We will inform you once a decision has been advised.
"Do it yourself" Weddings
An association has recently raised the issue of an apparent growing trend towards "do it yourself" ceremonies where the wedding is performed by a person who is not authorised as a celebrant in the presence of an authorised celebrant.
We seek the views of Associations as to the nature and extent of this practice.
The Department is currently considering the legal considerations arising from such practices and will consider Association views on the policy implications, together with these legal issues, in formulating a response.
Please forward your comments on this matter to Wendy Spicer (wendy.spicer@ag.gov.au) by 24 May 2002.
Member Email Contacts
The marriage celebrant database now has the capacity to store email address information. Any marriage celebrant who has an email address that has not previously been advised, can provide their details to either Lyn (lyn.brayshaw@ag.gov.au) or Fiona (fiona.johnson@ag.gov.au) and the information will be added to the database.
Website update
We have made arrangements for the e-bulletin for marriage celebrants to be posted to the Department's website as soon as possible after its distribution.
The April 2002 edition is now available and the May 2002 edition will follow shortly.