New Zealand Legislation: Acts

5 Preliminary steps before rural fire district constituted or boundaries changed

• (1) For the purposes of this section and section 6, the term Fire Authority includes the New Zealand Fire Service Commission.

  (2) Every proposal for the publication in the Gazette of a notice under section 4—

  • (a) shall be made to the National Rural Fire Authority; and

  • (b) shall, except where a rural fire district is to be abolished, be accompanied by a plan and land description together sufficiently describing the proposed rural fire district or the proposed changes in the boundaries of a rural fire district.

  (3) The proposer—

  • (a) shall send a copy of the proposal to every Fire Authority, regional council, and local authority affected by the proposal; and

  • (b) shall deposit a copy of the proposal in some convenient place to which the public has access so that the proposal may be available for public inspection.

  (4) The proposer shall cause a notice to be advertised at least twice (at intervals of not less than 1 week and not more than 2 weeks) in a newspaper circulating in the locality,—

  • (a) giving the substance of the proposal; and

  • (b) stating where and at what times a copy of the proposal is open for public inspection; and

  • (c) calling upon any persons affected to state in writing any well-grounded representations objecting to or supporting the proposal and to send it to the National Rural Fire Authority within a time limit not earlier than 1 month after the date of the first publication of the notice.

  (5) A copy of the notice shall be forwarded to the National Rural Fire Authority and to every body to which a copy of the proposal was sent pursuant to subsection (3), and every such body may make representations to the National Rural Fire Authority in respect of the proposal within the time limit set by the notice.

  (6) The National Rural Fire Authority may appoint a time and place at which the makers of representations under subsection (4) or subsection (5) may appear before the National Rural Fire Authority or a Fire Authority nominated by it or a Rural Fire Mediator and support their representations by such evidence as they think fit.

  (7) The National Rural Fire Authority shall give due consideration to the representations made and any supporting evidence produced before it gazettes any notice in respect of the proposal.

  Section 5: substituted, on 1 January 1991, by section 4 of the Forest and Rural Fires Amendment Act 1990 (1990 No 137).