New Zealand Legislation: Acts

8 Rural fire committees

• (1) The National Rural Fire Authority may from time to time, by notice in the Gazette, constitute or provide for the constitution, or election of a rural fire committee:

  Provided that, where all or part of a rural fire district comprises land within the locality over or in respect of or within which a local authority has or may exercise jurisdiction, that authority may be appointed as, or as a member of, a rural fire committee:

  Provided also that where there is land occupied for farming purposes or specially protected property in a rural fire district, the National Rural Fire Authority shall, where appropriate, ensure that the interests of landholders and other persons having rights in or over such land or property are represented on the committee, having regard to sections 45(2) and 46(2) of this Act.

  (2) Every rural fire committee so constituted shall be a body corporate, having (subject to the right of the National Rural Fire Authority to dissolve that body by notice in the Gazette), perpetual succession and a common seal, and being capable of holding real and personal property and of doing and suffering all other things that bodies corporate may do and suffer:

  Provided that where a local authority is the rural fire committee any acts or proceedings purporting to be effected by it pursuant to this Act shall be deemed to have been effected by that local authority acting as the rural fire committee.

  (3) All rural fire districts and committees constituted, provided for, or elected under the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1955 or the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1947, and subsisting at the commencement of this Act shall be deemed to have been constituted, provided for, or elected as rural fire districts and committees under this Act.

  Subsection (1) was amended, as from 1 April 1987, by section 2(1)(a) Forest and Rural Fires Amendment Act 1987 (1987 No 119) by inserting the words “of Forestry”.

  Section 8 was substituted, as from 1 January 1991, by section 6 Forest and Rural Fires Amendment Act 1990 (1990 No 137).