This Act may be cited as the Hauraki Plains Amendment Act, 1911, and shall form part of and be read together with the Hauraki Plains Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

Section four of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the words “eighty thousand pounds” in subsection one, and substituting the words “one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.”

In order to provide funds for the maintenance of the drainageworks carried out under the authority of the principal Act, and for the expenses of the general administration of that Act, so far as the same relate to the maintenance of the works, the Minister of Lands may from time to time make and levy a rate sufficient for those purposes.

The rate shall be made and levied on the unimproved value of all land subject to the operations of the principal Act, whether the same is rateable within the meaning of the Rating Act, 1908, or not.

The rate shall be made and levied on a graduated scale according to the classification of the land, as hereinafter mentioned.

For the purpose of classifying the land, the Minister of Lands shall appoint an appraiser, who shall classify all lands that are liable to be rated into the following classes:—

The rates shall be made and levied upon the aforesaid classes of land in such proportion as the appraiser recommends and the Minister of Lands approves.

In respect of Crown land of which there is for the time being no occupier within the meaning of the Rating Act, 1908, the Minister of Lands shall be deemed to be the occupier, and all rates payable in respect of such land shall from time to time be payable out of the Consolidated Fund without further appropriation than this Act.

Subject to the provisions of this section, the Rating Act, 1908, shall apply to every such rate in the same manner as if the Minister of Lands were a local authority within the meaning of that Act.

No rate under this section shall be made or collected until after the expiry of the financial year ending on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fourteen.

The Governor may from time to time appoint a fit person to be a Land Drainage Engineer under the principal Act, and may also appoint such other officers as he thinks necessary for the purposes of that Act, and may prescribe their duties and functions.