Bush Fires Act Amendment Act 1948 (WA)

1948.] Bush Fires. [No. 76.

BUSH FIRES.

12° and 13° GEO. VI., No. LXXVI.

No. 76 of 1948.

AN ACT to amend the Bush Fires Act, 1937-1945.

[Assented to 21st January, 1949.]

BE it enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty,by and with the advice and consent of the Legis- lative Council and Legislative Assembly of Western Australia, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-

1.    This Act may be cited as the Bush Fires Act short title.

Amendment Act, 1948, and shall be read as one with the Bush Fires Act, 1937-1942 (Act No. 55 of 1937 as re- printed pursuant to the Amendments Incorporation Act, 1938, with amendments up to and including Act No. 16 of 1942, in Volume 2 of the Reprinted Acts of the Parlia- ment of Western Australia and amended by Act No. 53 of 1945), hereinafter referred to as the principal Act.

2. The principal Act as amended by this Act may be Citation of principal Act

cited as the Bush Fires Act, 1937-1948. as amended.

3.    Theprincipal Act is amended by adding after Ifinperilorimpeanl

section thirty-five sections as follow:-- Act.

35A. (1) For the purposes of this Act any local authority in the district of which a bush fire brigade is established may apply to the Minister that such district or any part thereof be declared an approved area.

On receipt of such application the Minister may by notice published in the Government Gazette declare the district or any part thereof of the local authority to be an approved area.

(2)

(3) Before declaring the district or part thereof to be an approved area the Minister may appoint a forest officer to inspect the bush fire brigade of the local authority and report as to the standard of

efficiency of such bush fire brigade.

No. 76.] .81 sh Fires. [1948.

The Minister may require the local authority

to pay the cost of any inspection made by a forest

officer.

(4)

(5) For the purposes of this section "forest officer" means any field officer of the Forests Depart- ment.

35B. (1) Where any crop situate wholly or partly within an approved area is insured against loss or damage by fire the rate of premium charged by the insurer in respect of such insurance shall not exceed seventy-five per centum of the rate of premium charged by such insurer in respect of crops not situate within an approved area.

(2)

Any person, firm or corporation which charges

any rate of premium in excess of that permitted by

this section shall be guilty of an offence.

Penalty: Ten pounds.

(3) For the purposes of this section "crop"

means and includes any crop of .wheat, oats, barley, flax, meadow hay or rye whether growing, standing, harvested, cut for hay, stooked, or stacked, including grain, hay or chaff produced therefrom and bags to be used in connection therewith, whilst on the farm on which the crop was produced and whether in the open air or in any building on the farm, or whilst being transported from the farm to a railway siding.

350. If in the opinion of the Minister the bush fire brigade of a local authority at any time is not of a reasonable standard of efficiency, the Minister may by notice published in the "Government Gazette" declare that any approved area within the district of such local authority shall, as from a date to be specified in such notice, cease to be an approved area for the purposes of this Act and accordingly the provisions of section thirty-five B of this Act shall as from such specified date cease to apply to any crop situate within such area except in so far as regards crops on which insurance has been effected prior to such specified date.

4. The principal Act is amended by inserting a new

section 35D, as follows:—

35D. Sections 35A, 35B, and 35C shall continue

in force until the thirty-first day of December, onc,

thousand nine hundred and fifty, and no longer.