The French Model: Mr Ruddock

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Dally Messenger

Tuesday, 30 June 2015

The Hon Philip Ruddock, Parliament House, CANBERRA. ACT 2600

Dear Mr Ruddock,

Re same-sex and heterosexual marriage
The French Model

Since the dawn of history, marriage has transformed strangers into relatives, binding families and societies together.

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.
Marriage is a keystone of our social order.

Justice Anthony Kennedy

Phillip Ruddock

I am writing to seek to persuade you to desist from considering the “French Model” as blueprint for the administration of civil marriage in Australia. I would seek to persuade you to go completely the other way. The “French Model” would be a terrible step backwards.

You may be astounded to know that I consider you to be the best Attorney-General we have had in recent years. I say this despite the fact that in “olden times” you attacked me in the Parliament (MP Lashes “Pagan Rites”, Tony O’Leary, Melbourne Sun, 18-8-1978).

But when you became Attorney-General my colleagues and I observed how you carried out your desk work conscientiously – detailed attention to your responsibilities, from which we all benefitted. We also noted with appreciation how you attempted to give civil celebrants some support and encouragement. I recall your attempt to give us some recognition with a certificate signed by yourself as Attorney-General, a plan which was completely and utterly sabotaged by the then relevant officers of the public service.

What I most appreciated was when you supported me in teaching ceremony topics in the original years of Ongoing Professional Development (OPD). You read my letter, you agreed with the contents and you acted on it. We both did a good thing there. Those original OPD topics set a great tone and direction in the celebrant program before that same ignorant group of public servants (non-celebrants, of course) sabotaged that too. So in the slipstream of those events, the informed celebrants of that era have good feelings towards you.

It was you personally, who early in 2007, pointed out that it was OK for same sex couples to be recorded in a Register but “not to have a ceremony”. (Ceremony not for Gays, says Ruddock, Kenneth Nguyen, The Age, Feb 8-2007) You strongly implied that it is ceremony that confers dignity – and you did not think that same-sex couples were entitled to such dignity at that stage of history.

Mr Ruddock, you do see what the “French Model” does. Same sex or straight couples in marriage are all reduced to non-ceremony status. Instead of uplifting all persons to a level of dignity and status, such as is conferred by a ceremony, all parties are reduced to “just record it in a book” status.

It is all right to say, in an off-hand way such as you did on the ABC’s Q and A that “they can go to a church later and have a ceremony. if they want to” but how many will do that now that church allegiance has declined so dramatically?

And where do secular people go “if they want to”? To civil celebrants? When they are already legally married?

Let me tell you what has happened under your successors – the Attorney-Generals who have followed you.

Take numbers of celebrants. Whereas 1600 were enough for Australia up to 2003, and 2000 would have been more than enough, and 2500 would have been excessive, your successors appointed 11,000 !!! (They have got the numbers down a bit by charging money but the scene is still so very diluted it is harmful.)

The results of this monstrous maladministration were predictable: good celebrants resigned in disgust, the excessive competition led to price-cutting wars, standards were forced down, cheap and demeaning advertising abounded, gimmickry flourished, kitsch obliterated taste, doggerel drowned classic poetry — status and dignity were lost.

Many Registered Training Organisations are the disgrace of Australian Education (Victorian Government launches crackdown on ‘dodgy’ training providers, ABC News Melbourne, 29-6-2015 and so many other reports) , Those RTOs jumped on to the exploitation bandwagon by adding celebrancy to their list, and taking their lead from the same wretched public servants to whom I referred, only taught “legal trivia” – much of it, not only unimportant, but erroneous. One non-celebrant taught hundreds of other non-celebrants how to be celebrants for over six years! Your successors, despite many warnings from concerned celebrants and citizens, ignored this exploitation for over a decade.

The celebrancy topics you and I agreed on – music, poetry, prose, symbolism, choreography, story telling, personal stories, and myth did not even get a look in. The personal, social and cultural value of ceremony did not get past their purposely glassed over eyes. Creative ceremonial writing, competent ceremonial public speaking, use of PA systems, mentoring of new celebrants by competent and successful celebrants in the field, became of no consequence. In short, your successors, by their ignorance and limited vision, have all but destroyed us.

And then we come to values. The cheap shot at civil celebrants is that we lack “Christian” values. Actually we don’t. Secular and religious persons in Australia share most good values. Be that as it may, ceremonies are one of the main ways which express, transmit and reinforce values. As an aware celebrant (I hope) I am very conscious of this great advantage to our society. Personally created ceremonies, such as civil celebrants were established to provide, do this very well. But take us to the “French model” and the culture will lose one of the main ways values are preserved, strengthened and carried forward.

And now we come to the arts. And I notice that the current Attorney-General is a lover of poetry and is also Minister for the Arts. One would think …..

Be that as it may, ceremonies are the bridge between the arts and the people. For example, for many ordinary people ceremonies are the only occasion that they hear the poets. In the ceremonies at which I have officiated I have either heard or read the poetry of William Shakespeare, Bryce Courtenay, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Kahlil Gibran, Rabindranath Tagore, Banjo Paterson, Pam Ayres, Christina Rossetti, Robert Burns, Christopher Brennan, Jean Bollen, Rupert Brooke, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christopher Marlowe, e.e. cummings. Michael Leunig, Thomas Davidson, John Donne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kate Fisher, M.D.Hughes, D.H. Lawrence, Gloria Matthew, Rod McKuen, John Milton, J.H.Newman, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Liana Preston, James Whitcomb Reilly, Jamie Samms, Canon Henry Scott-Holland , Sir Phillip Sidney, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dylan Thomas, Mark Twain and Leonard Cohen.

Most of these poems are “value packed” and are classic. They are understandable at the first reading, and when heard for the first time. I have had up to nine readers of poetry in a ceremony, trained and practised in a rehearsal, who, on the day of the wedding, held the guests spellbound.

In a civil ceremony we also often connect with with our society’s composers and musicians, and directly and indirectly with whole range of other artists – hairdressers, dressmakers, photographers and many more. Strip ceremony out of the culture in the “French model” and you lose all this.

The classic basic text used in many university settings which explores ceremony in depth is the famous research of the anthropologist, Arnold Van Gennep. He wrote the book translated as The Rites of Passage. Inter alia, van Gennep observed that participants in prepared ceremonies of substance were changed in themselves. They thought about themselves differently, others thought about them differently (so evident in a marriage ceremony). There are similar wonderful insights into the worth of secular/civil ceremony in the works of Joseph Campbell, Ronald Grimes, David Oldfield (USA!), Margaret Mead, Alain de Botton, Robert Fulford, Mircia Eliade and Louise Mahdi. These inspiring writers could be part of every celebrant training program.

It gets worse – the lost possibilities! In the current mess, and given the rate of youth suicide, the adolescent ceremony which Australia most needs, and which I broached with you and your successors, receives no mention – not even on the radar.

Whereas competent celebrants could give much more dignity to individual citizenship ceremonies, as we then proposed, the issue is dead. You recall from your time as Minister for Immigration how citizenship is not attained until the person takes the pledge in a ceremony. Celebrants could make an enriching contribution here. A good cultural scene could be further improved with the stroke of an enlightened pen.

In the funeral field, most Funeral Directors, by effectively controlling the fees paid to celebrants, force down standards. The Funeral Directors keep the fees low, thus forcing many celebrants with high ideals out of the vocation. Celebrants are the most exploited people in the funeral industry. The ACCC is seen to support Funeral Directors in their collusion (legal or illegal) to control celebrant fees. They, being big business, have their lobbyists, employed to progress their money making ambitions. We have no champion.

Before the tsunami of numbers, and the exploitation by the so-called “educators” we were on the verge of substantial success with all this. Living as we do in a mainly a secular society, we had (and still have) the opportunity of enriching lives with an acceptable and elevated secular culture. We could have done so much more for this country with just a little leadership, support and encouragement. We have had the opposite.

And may I beg you finally – whatever you may think of my views and opinions – please may I not be characterised as writing to you out of self interest.. I am 77 years of age. I am 80% retired. I am not “after business”. I believe I am like you. I am out to better my world and my country.

For a long while Australia led the world in civil celebrancy. It still could – with your influential help.

With best personal wishes,

Dally Messenger III

Source of Information: The French Model and Ruddock
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/senior-coalition-mps-suggest-the-government-divorces-marriage-20150609-ghjx7r.html

Celebrants: Signatures on the Decorative Marriage Certificate (Australia)

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Dally Messenger

We all used to do this for the first 30 years of the program. Sometimes the parents, sometimes the groomsmen and the bridesmaids, would sign. In doing so they felt of real significance and part of the ceremony.. (The two witnesses were in their normal place on the certificate)

Emu Bottom

—
Then you-know-who invented, out of that falsely legal head of hers, another new baseless rule, and added it to the pile of legal trivia which now constitutes the marriage celebrants of Australia.
—
New inexperienced celebrants somehow got to teach OPD. Some (not all) seemed to love these new invented rules, and seemed to love showing off their recently invented knowledge with great authority. The end result? In doing so they killed off that little bit of joy that people gained by being a little bit more part of the event.
—
The dictum of the law is – in dubiis libertas – in doubtful things freedom –
There is a law which says two of the witnesses must sign – but where oh where is there a law forbidding other witnesses to sign?
The real issue here is taking away from people the joy of looking at their Marriage Certificate and remembering who the key people were.
—
The signing was a dignified joyous moment – and sometimes that wonderful wedding singer was able to sing three songs instead of two. The singers also felt more part of the event.
—
Another observation. If you ring an inexperienced public servant in the AG’s office and ask the question – “can I do this?” – to cover their behind, the safest thing they can say is “No”. ( My observation is that they do not do any course of study; just like most celebrants of the you-know-who era they pick it up as they go – learn from their mistakes – good old victim-based learning).
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I hope (I urge) everyone who reads this far also to read the never-ever-ever taught Section 48 of the Marriage Act – http://www.collegeofcelebrancy.com.au/pages4/Sect_48-Marriage_Act.html -. It is the most valuable part of the Marriage Act. It is a freeing experience. A good understanding of it will help a celebrant concentrate on what is our real and original task – enriching the culture with ceremonies that keep getting better.

Brian McInerney – Pioneer Funeral Celebrant

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Dally Messenger

Brian McInerney: Pioneer Funeral Celebrant

Brian McInerney died on December 22nd, 2014

This heart was woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow,
swift to mirth.
—
The years had given him kindness.
Dawn was his,
And sunset,
and the colours of the earth.
—
He had seen movement,
and heard music;
known Slumber and waking;
loved;
gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder;
sat alone;
—
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks.
All this is ended.
—————
(slightly adapted from Rupert Brooke)
————-

Brian McInerney was a man who could read, write and speak. He was a man of many parts but here I just want to talk about him as a funeral celebrant.

I first met him in 1972 when he was executive producer of English language radio programs for the ABC’s Radio Australia.The pressure of the job was affecting his health, so he resigned from the ABC in 1975.

The recently created marriage celebrant program established by the Attorney General Lionel Murphy had been enthusiastically received by the general public.

Marriages are very happy occasions and the original celebrants enjoyed their task immensely – but inevitably there came the time when clients of celebrants required non-church funerals. The marriage celebrant community, consonant with the culture of the times, vehemently rejected the idea of officiating at secular funerals. So we could fill the need, Murphy (then a Justice of the High Court) urged me and others to go out into the “highways and byways” and find non-marriage celebrants to respond to the need.

Mr “Golden Voice” from the ABC, as Brian Mcinerney was known, became one of the first funeral celebrants. He stepped into this totally new field as if he had done it all his life. He was such a natural. Brian was probably the most well read, best self-educated person I have ever met. Family members told me that he had read the complete works of Dickens before he turned fifteen years of age. In the days before Google and the internet, Brian was the “go to” person if you had a line or quote from a poem and you needed to know the source.

Today’s readers will find it difficult to comprehend that there was no such thing as a non-church funeral in the mid 70s. McInerney was a pioneer who established the new freedom and who set the new standard. For the first time in Western cultural history ordinary people were farewelled in a funeral ceremony which was framed by appropriate and carefully selected poetry, prose, music, symbolism, myths, and stories. The life of the person was recorded, their achievements recognised, and their character and personality described in a eulogy which set their special place in family and community history.

Brian, more than any of us, gained the reputation of writing eulogies for ordinary people which bordered on the masterful. The connections to history, the allusions to literature, were skilfully inserted with animation and colour.

A new and exciting phenomenon, celebrants were, at this time, widely reported in the media. Brian Mcinerney was often featured. One famous account relates the funeral of the father of the family who evoked the story of the Knight in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”. Brian centred his eulogy around the story of the Knight and in doing so uplifted the spirits of everyone who attended the funeral. What he didn’t know was that one of the man’s children had arrived from the USA on the morning of ceremony. This young woman was a lecturer in 14th Century English Literature at Harvard University. Expecting a “nothing” funeral, she had the thrill of hearing her father eulogised in terms of the Knight.

Up to 1995 or so funeral celebrants throughout Melbourne were often called on to create funerals for the soldiers who had survived World War II. At our meetings and seminars, Brian would inspire his fellow celebrants with the poetry of Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. When Brian began to recite –

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge …”

we knew, in the vividness of our imagination, we were going to be transported to the horror of war. Thus inspired by Brian, we composed funerals for those old soldiers which did them proud.

The end of the eighties /early nineties was a time of high inflation in Australia. Brian and his wife Tina had three young children and were feeling the pinch financially. He needed to increase his income and so asked the funeral directors with whom he worked to give him a rise in fees. He had come to believe that the people he knew in the funeral industry were his personal friends and collaborators. They would understand his position and recognise his contribution. But at this request the smiles went off their faces. He learned later from one of them that they had rung around and decided to “put him in his place”. All funeral work suddenly ceased.

Brian was deeply hurt and disillusioned. To survive he had to capitulate. I don’t think he ever recovered his faith in human nature after that. To maintain his income with what had become a pittance of a fee, he had to take on more funerals and lower his standards – a decision which always cuts deep into the heart of the true professional. His health slowly deteriorated and he gradually withdrew from funeral celebrancy. But in his first twenty years of work he had set a benchmark standard for secular people in western society. The thousands of written records which survive his pen will be the joy of family genealogists and historians for centuries to come.

(Brian is survived by his wife Tina, his daughter from his first marriage, Jane, his stepdaughter Amy, his son Michael and daughter Sophie. A commemoration ceremony will be held for him on February 8.)

Brian McInerney recites the World War 1 Wilfred Owen Poem – Dulce et Decorum est.
Dulce et Decorum est. Explanation of the text

Dulce et Decorum est – the Poem

The Lionel Murphy Civil Celebrant – A Fit and Proper Person – Suzanne Ingleton

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Dally Messenger

LIONEL MURPHY – FIT & PROPER PERSON

LIONEL MURPHY
Is the founder of the Civil Celebrant Program. Most celebrants – especially the excessive numbers since the tragic downgrading of 2003 – have never heard of him – or his ideals of professionalism and quality.

What should happen – Lionel Murphy and his work should be known and honoured. Those who drink the water, should remember those who dug the well. His achievements should be the subject of a three hour OPD (at least).

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FIT & PROPER PERSON
No unaccountable officer or even an accountable officer should have the power to destroy people’s lives by making such a decision about a person, or branding a person in such a way.
In the Age of the Internet this tag of not “fit and proper” on a person’s reputation is like a criminal record. Used in a cavalier way by a public servant, I have seen it almost destroy one person’s life. The decision about this celebrant is still on the internet!

What should happen – Applications to become a celebrant should simply be accepted or rejected without such branding. Reasons should be given for such a rejection and an appeal process, which an ordinary person can afford, should be part of the process. Better still, as has often been proposed, a balanced committee should decide how many celebrants are needed to provide a balance in a natural geographical area. Would be celebrants should apply, be shortlisted in the usual manner by an independent person, and the best applicants should be chosen.

Abuse of power by the public service in the Attorney-General’s Department

Take the police – as I write this there are 61 police officers with charges against them in Victoria. In other words, people who have legal powers, as individuals, should be accountable. The police have the OPI – Office of Police Integrity – to check on the abuse of power – the public service has no one to check on them. (The ombudsman and the AAP have in a very restricted number of cases. The ombudsman only intervenes if it is in the previous 12 months, and the AAP is very expensive (legal representation). It is no use complaining to the Minister because the letter usually goes straight through to the public servant one is complaining about !
So where can the celebrant or citizen turn for redress when such power is abused? To declare a person, not “fit and proper” should not be allowed except under the signature of the Minister and then in only very serious circumstances.

Suzanne Ingleton – a case of abuse by the Attorney-General’s Department

In the case of Suzanne Ingleton – a person declared not “fit and proper” by the Registrar of Marriages – the Administrative Appeals Tribunal upbraided the Registrar for

– signing a false affidavit

– interpreting the law wrongly

– acting “ultra vires”

– disrespect for the tribunal

– making a groundless decision etc

– -no action was ever taken ! Ms Ingleton is still on the internet as being accused.

Celebrants – what is and what ought to be. #2

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Dally Messenger

REGISTRAR OF MARRIAGES – TENDERS AND CONTRACTS – FUNDING

What is happening? What should be happening?

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REGISTRAR OF MARRIAGES
There should not be a Registrar of Marriages. That such excessive power is given to a Public Servant militates against democracy, and transfers responsibility from the elected representative to an unelected bureaucrat – most of whose decisions cannot be appealed against.
Section 39 of the Act, listing all the powers of the Registrar, is an obscene intrusion from the Downgrading of 2003.
Other more important responsibilities of the Attorney-General are not under the control of a “Registrar”.
To have a “Registrar”, written into law, lets the elected Attorney-General off the hook – so he can wipe his hands and go out to dinner. (“Someone else’s problem”)

What should happen – Section 39 should be returned to what it was before the Downgrading. Appointments of public servants should be by internal arrangement of the department and should not have any force in law. The Attorney-General should take responsibility foo his portfolio.
Celebrants, especially those who have experience and a good track record in ceremonies, and with years of experience, should be consulted and involved in decisions.
Sometimes, offensively, after the main decisions are made the Registrar consults some celebrants about fringe and minor decisions thus pretending to consult. Pretending to consult is an offence against the public service Code of Conduct and should be punished.[3]

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TENDERS AND CONTRACTS
– These are all given to Canprint without consideration of anyone else e.g. printing of marriage certificates – no one else can quote – no one else can tender.

What should happen -Tenders and contracts and retail rights should be offered to all reputable contractors.

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FUNDING
Funding is never given to celebrants but excessive funding e.g. goes to Relationship Educators and Counsellors. Some time ago celebrants in Australia recently received a box of DVDs on Relationship Education which were not up to standard – we received them without briefing – without explanation. [4] They will simply be thrown out by most celebrants. [5]

What should happen – Funding should be given to celebrants on a careful basis. For example, of the millions of dollars spent preventing our high rate of Youth Suicide, celebrants should have been given a fee per adolescence ceremony aimed at strengthening the bonds between the disconnected teenager and their family, friends and community – expressing love, support and encouragement. Funding should go to celebrants to develop community ceremonies which strengthen bonds within the community, express, rein force and transmit the best of society’s values, and which help form a culture.

Celebrants – Leadership, Numbers, Training. #1

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Dally Messenger

LEADERSHIP – NUMBERS – TRAINING – SYLLABUS AND METHODS OF TRAINING

What is happening? What should be happening?

It is difficult to conceive of a government program that has been more mismanaged than the Civil Celebrant Program. Now is the time to attempt to try to fix it and get it right. We have a new Attorney-General and some new and, it seems, courteous public servants. ————————————————————————————————
LEADERSHIP – we haven’t had any – we haven’t even had an attempt at genuine interest or understanding for many years. Without a vision, the people perish. Nothing good can possibly happen until people in power take a real and genuine interest.

What should happen– the Attorney General and the public servants should cease the games of the past, and the dismissals of our concerns in the past, and assist us bring quality ceremonies to the Australian people. —————————————————————————————————
NUMBERS There is an excessive number of Celebrants. 1600 was enough, 2000 would be plenty, 2500 would be excessive – but we have 10,500! Also read this blog on The Numbers

What should happen –
There should be an immediate and indefinite Moratorium on appointments, and a program of reducing numbers begun immediately. There should be balanced number of celebrants so that the public gets a sufficient and wide choice and celebrants themselves have a chance to develop and maintain skills and be given the chance to believe in what they are doing. In the first place The Attorney-General should ask every celebrant who was duped into applying on the promise of big and plentiful money, to resign. That should be the first move. There are a number of other moves after that which could be made. ———————————————————————————————————— TRAINING
–Most celebrants, in general, are badly trained in law and have virtually no training in ceremony.

What should happen – Celebrants should be trained especially well in ceremony and in law.
———————————————————————————————————— SYLLABUS AND METHOD OF TRAINING The syllabus for the training is inadequate and focussed too heavily on legal matters. Nationally Registered Training, based on the profit motive, compels the owners of RTOs to teach the least amount they can get away with, so that they can lower prices, and beat the competition. As such it is a failed and flawed system inherently and inexorably driven to lower and lower standards and thus internally programmed to self-destruct. Against all advice, previous Attorneys- General opened up to this “Nationally Registered Training”.

As well as the basic deficiency mentioned above it is, as far as resources go, a leaderless, oppressively bureaucratic, and fractured-among-the-states system. It is a system open to exploitation. The “course” for celebrants, originally two years part time at Monash University, was gradually reduced to five, four, three, and finally two days, taught mostly, for seven years after the Downgrading of 2003 by non-celebrants. There now is a “Certificate IV” but it is still in the same system subject to the same inbuilt weaknesses.

What should happen – The syllabus, which the department, with some excellent public servants, got right in 1995, was badly diminished in the Downgrading of 2003. It should be taught by celebrant/educationists with proven skills in creating and delivering ceremonies, as well as the correct legal procedures. Such courses should be independently assessed and rated by properly briefed and genuine teachers who are not part of the current self defeating system. The training of celebrants should be adequate and more than adequate. It should be aimed not just “competence” in law but in really high and professional standards in the creation of ceremonies, and with an awareness of the deep psychological and lasting good effects in the lives of individual and in the cultural infrastructure of society.