EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULE NO. 242 1982
ISSUED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR TRANSPORT AND CONSTRUCTION
LIGHTHOUSES AND LIGHT DUES REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Section 20 of the Lighthouses Act 1911, ‘the Act’, provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing all matters which by the Act are required or permitted to be prescribed, or which are necessary or convenient to be prescribed, for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Section 13 of the Act provides, amongst other things, that light dues in accordance with the rates or scales prescribed by the Regulations shall be levied and shall be payable with respect to the voyages made by ships or by way of periodical payment as the regulations prescribe.
The amendment of regulation 13 to amend the definition of “tonnage” is in consequence of the coming into effect in Australia, on 22 August 1982, of the International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships, 1969.
For the purposes of the Regulations, “tonnage” in relation to a ship measured for tonnage under the Convention means the ‘net tonnage’ specified in the ship’s International Tonnage Certificate (1969) and in other cases, “tonnage” will mean the ‘net or register tonnage’, as the case may be, specified in the ship’s certificate of registry. The term ‘net registered tonnage’ is no longer used in reference to the tonnage of ships.
Regulation 4 makes a consequential amendment to paragraph 20f to amend the reference to ‘net registered tonnage’ in that paragraph.
Regulation 15 of the Lighthouses and Light Dues Regulations prescribes the rate of light dues payable. The present rate is forty-one cents per ton on the tonnage of a ship.
Regulation 3 amends regulation 15 to increase the rate of light dues payable from forty-one cents to forty-nine cents per ton on the tonnage of a ship. The increase is in accordance with the Government’s policy of full cost recovery and has been endorsed by the Minister for Finance.
Regulation 1 provides that the amendments come into operation on 1 October 1982.