This Act may be cited as the Greymouth Harbour Board Amendment Act, 1920, and shall form part of and be read together with the Greymouth Harbour Board Act, 1884 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

This Act shall come into operation on the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-one.

The Governor-General may, by Proclamation, constitute a harbour district to be called the “Greymouth Harbour District.”

For the purpose of determining the boundaries of the Greymouth Harbour District the Governor-General in Council may appoint a Commission under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1908, and may adopt the report of the Commission either wholly or with such modifications or alterations as he thinks fit.

The Board shall, during the month of April in each financial year, or as soon thereafter as may be, make an estimate of the amount of its expenditure for all purposes during the same year (exclusive of capital expenditure on Loan Account). The estimate may include the amount of any deficiency in the revenues of the Board during the preceding or any former year, and the amount of the deficiency as estimated shall be deemed to form part of the expenditure of the Board in the year in which the estimate is so made.

From the amount of expenditure so estimated there shall be deducted the estimated income of the Board during the same year from all sources other than rates.

The Board shall in each year make and levy on the capital value of all rateable property in the harbour district a rate sufficient to provide the excess of the estimated expenditure over the estimated income for the year.

The Minister of Railways is hereby charged with the management, maintenance, and control of the Greymouth-Brunner Coalfield Railway, and may from time to time enter into such agreements as he thinks fit with the Greymouth Harbour Board with respect to the management and control of the Greymouth Railway Wharf.

Section seven of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing paragraph two thereof.

There shall be payable annually to the Grey mouth Harbour Board, out of the Consolidated Fund, without further appropriation than this Act, such sum by way of subsidy as the Minister of Finance may from time to time determine, not exceeding in any financial year the sum of fifteen thousand pounds.

All moneys paid to the Harbour Board pursuant to this section shall be applied by the Board in payment of interest, sinking fund, and other charges (if any) payable by it in respect of loans heretofore lawfully raised by the Board, or in respect of any loan under section seven of this Act.

The Harbour Board may, with the approval of and subject to such conditions as may be imposed by the Governor-General in Council, but subject to the provisions of the Harbours Act, 1908, fix scales of dues, tolls, and charges to be paid for the use of the Railway Wharf at Greymouth, and to be paid in respect of goods passing over the said wharf, and may recover the same in manner provided by the Harbours Act, 1908.

Section seven of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing the proviso thereto.

All moneys which at the commencement of this Act are due and payable by the Board to His Majesty in respect of interest on loans or other charges, or any portion of those moneys, may, with the approval of the Governor-General in Council, be treated as a loan granted to the Board by the Minister of Finance as from the commencement of this Act, for such term, at such rate of interest, and on such other conditions as may be agreed on between the Board and the Minister of Finance.

The Board is hereby empowered to issue debentures charged upon its revenues in respect of any loan under this section.

The Governor-General may, by Order in Council, make such regulations as he deems necessary for the purpose of giving effect to this Act.