Sydney Harbour Rates Act 1904 (NSW)

Act No. 26, 1904.

An Act to impose harbour rates for the port of Sydney ; to amend the scales of wharfage and tonnage rates and to provide for be r th ing tolls and charges at the said p o r t ; to provide for t he payment and collection of such rates, tolls, and c h a r g e s ; to amend the Sydney Harbour Trus t Act, 1900, and the Wharfage and Tonnage Kates Act, 1901 ; and for pur­ poses consequent thereon or incidental there to . [13th December, 1904.]

WH E R E A S large expenditure is annually incurred in dredging, it is expedient that such expenditure should be borne more equitably

lighting, improving, and maintaining the port of Sydney, and

than heretofore by those; who benefit by i t : Be it therefore enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly of New South Wales in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows :—

3. Towards meeting the expenditure annually incurred in dredging, lighting, improving, and maintaining the port of Sydney, the commissioners may, by regulations, fix and collect under this Act on

Preliminary.

1. This Act may he cited as the " Sydney Harbour Pates Act,
1901," and shall be construed with the Sydney Harbour Trust Act,
1900, hereinafter referred to as the Principal Act.

2. Sections seven, eight, nine, and ten of the Wharfage and

Tonnage Pates Act, 1901, are repealed so far as they relate to the port of Sydney.

Harbour rates.

on goods brought by sea into the port of Sydney harbour rates, not exceeding one-half of the respective amounts of the inward wharfage rates specified in the Second Schedule to the Wharfage and Tonnage Kates Act, 1901.

4. The harbour rales so fixed shall be paid by the owners or

consignees of the goods within forty-eight hours after the landing or transhipment of the goods in the port of Sydney; and if such rates are not so paid within the said period, the person liable to pay the same shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding fifty pounds.

Provided that, in respect of goods transhipped in the said port, one half only of the said harbour rates shall be payable, unless the goods are landed on a wharf or other place vested in the commissioners, and the transhipment docs not take place within fourteen days after the landing, in which case the full harbour rates shall be payable :
Provided also that, where wharfage rates are payable to the commissioners on goods on which harbour rates have been paid, the amount of such harbour rates shall be deducted from the amount payable as wharfage rates.

5. For the purpose of carrying out the above provisions as to harbour rates, the commissioners and their officers and servants may at any time enter any place having frontage to the port of Sydney where goods are landed, and may inspect any goods landed thereon.

Tonnage rates and berthing charges.

6. (1) Tonnage rates shall be levied by and paid to the commissioners upon every vessel (except vessels under two hundred and forty tons of register tonnage and lighters) while berthed at any

wharf, dock, pier, jetty, landing-stage, slip, or platform vested in the
commissioners.

(2) On vessels in respect of which tonnage rates arc not

payable, the commissioners may, by regulations, impose and provide

for the collection of tolls or charges for berthing at any wharf, dock,

pier, jetty, landing-stage, slip, or platform vested in them. Such tolls and charges may be fixed charges for berthing, or may be in the form of licenses for a fixed period.

(3) Nothing in this section shall affect any lease or agree­ ment for a lease of any wharf, dock, pier, jetty, landing-stage, slip, or platform granted or entered into by the commissioners.

7. Such tonnage rates shall be according to the following

scale—•

(a) in respect of the first six days (exclusive of Sundays and days observed in the public offices in Sydney as holidays)

after

after the time of berthing, one half-penny for each ton of the register tonnage of the vessel up to live thousand tons, and one farthing for each such ton over five thousand tons for each complete day of twenty-four hours or, day of over eighteen hours, or one-fourth, one-half, and three-fourths of such rate for parts of a day of or less than six, twelve, and eighteen hours respectively ;

(b) in respect of each such subsequent day or part of a day, half the above rate.

8. The owner or the agent of the owner of a vessel shall pay all tonnage rates upon the vessel before she leaves the port.

If any vessel leaves the port before such rates are paid, such owner or agent shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding one hundred pounds.

Wharfage rates.

9. I n the case of vessels engaged in the coasting or inter-state trade, and in respect of which transhipment entries are not passed at the custom house, such entries instead of being so passed shall, for the purposes of the first proviso to subsection one of section sixty-eight of the Principal Act, be lodged with the commissioners.

10. The commissioners may make regulations for securing the

payment of wharfage rates, and in particular prohibiting the removal

of goods until such rates are paid.

Supplemental.

11. The master of a vessel shall, within twenty-four hours after

entering the port of Sydney, lodge at the; office of the cominissiemers a true and complete copy of his manifest, and if be fails to do so be shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding one hundred pounds.

12. For the purpose's of this Act the register t o n a g e of a

vessel shall be ascertained in accordance with the Imperial Merchant

Shipping Act, 1894, and any Acts amending it.

The latest publie;ation of Lloyd's Register shall be evidence of

such tonnage;.

i)   Act