This Act may be cited as the Municipal Association Act, 1939, and, except as hereinafter provided, shall come into force on the first day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine.

There is hereby established a body, to be known as the Municipal Association of New Zealand, Incorporated (hereinafter referred to as the Association), which shall be a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, and shall be capable of holding real and personal property and of doing and suffering all that bodies corporate may do and suffer.

The Association constituted under this section is hereby declared to be the same body corporate as the Municipal Association of New Zealand, Incorporated, constituted under the Municipal Association Act, 1932.

The general functions of the Association shall be to watch over and protect the interests, rights, and privileges of its members; to take action in relation to any subject, or legislation, affecting any of its members; to procure legal opinions on matters of general interest to its members; and generally to promote the efficient carrying-out of local government so far as it affects the corporations referred to in the next succeeding section.

Any of the corporations referred to in the next succeeding subsection may from time to time become members or resign from membership of the Association in accordance with the rules of the Association.

The corporations to which the last preceding subsection refers are—

The Association may from time to time, at any meeting of the Association, make rules (not inconsistent with this Act) for all or any of the following purposes:—

Any rules of the Association may in like manner be amended or revoked.

Rules may be made under this section prescribing different subscriptions, fees, or other payments for different members or classes of members and providing for the exemption of any member or class of members from any subscription, fee, or other payment.

No rule made under this section, and no amendment or revocation of any rule, shall come into force unless and until it is approved by the Minister of Internal Affairs.

Two copies under seal of any rules made under this section and of any amendment or revocation of any rules shall be given to the Registrar of Incorporated Societies, and shall be recorded by him.

Sections thirteen to eighteen of the Incorporated Societies Act, 1908, shall apply to the Association in all respects as if it were a society incorporated under that Act.

The Executive Committee of the Association may from time to time appoint a Secretary and such other officers and servants as it deems necessary for the efficient carrying-out of the objects of the Association, and may fix the remuneration and allowances payable to the Secretary and to the other officers and servants of the Association.

The Association may pay the reasonable travelling-expenses incurred by members of the Executive Committee of the Association in carrying out any functions under this Act.

The President may, in addition to any amount payable for travelling-expenses under the last preceding subsection, be paid such annual allowance, not exceeding one hundred pounds, as the Executive Committee from time to time fixes. This subsection shall be deemed to have come into force on the first day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight.

Each member of the Association may from time to time out of its General Fund or Account pay to the Association any subscriptions, fees, or other moneys payable by it under this Act or under the rules of the Association, and may also pay the reasonable travelling-expenses of its representatives incurred in attending meetings or conferences of the Association.

The Council of any borough in which the annual meeting of the Association is held in any year may in that year, or in any earlier or later year, expend in connection with the holding of the meeting and the reception and entertainment of delegates and other persons attending the meeting such amount or amounts as the Council thinks fit, not exceeding in the aggregate a sum equal to one per centum of the total general rate struck by the Council in the year in which the meeting is held.

The Municipal Association Act, 1932, and section thirteen of the Municipal Corporations Amendment Act, 1938, are hereby repealed.

All offices, elections, appointments, rules, instruments, and generally all acts of authority that originated under the enactments hereby repealed, and are subsisting or in force on the commencement of this Act shall enure for the purposes of this Act as fully and effectually as if they had originated under the corresponding provisions of this Act, and accordingly shall, where necessary, be deemed to have so originated.