This Act may be cited as the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Act, 1911, and shall form part of and be read together with the Workers’ Compensation Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act), and shall come into operation on the first day of March, nineteen hundred and twelve.

Section two of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from the definition of “worker” all the words after the words “but does not include,” and substituting the words “any person employed otherwise than by way of manual labour whose remuneration exceeds two hundred and sixty pounds a year.”

Section four of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing paragraph (b) thereof, and substituting therefor the following paragraph:—

The wife of a deceased worker and his children under the age of sixteen years (whether legitimate or illegitimate) shall be conclusively presumed to have been dependent on the earnings of that worker at the time of the accident which caused his death, but their dependency shall be deemed to be total unless it is proved in fact to be partial only.

Nothing in this section shall apply to a wife who at the time of the accident which causes her husband’s death has deserted him without just cause.

Section five of the principal Act is hereby amended by adding the following subsection:—

The said section five is hereby further amended by inserting, after the word “accident” where it first occurs in subsection six, the words “but not exceeding the sum of two pounds ten shillings per week.”

Section eleven of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from subsection five thereof the words “in any harbour thereof within the meaning of the Shipping and Seamen Act, 1908, or within the marginal or other waters,” and substituting the words “within the outer boundary of the territorial waters.”

When an action is commenced for the recovery of compensation in respect of an accident happening out of New Zealand the action shall, on the application of the defendant, be stayed until the plaintiff has given to the defendant a sufficient undertaking not to institute any proceedings for the recovery of compensation or damages from the defendant in any other part of the British dominions in respect of the same accident.

In any action for the recovery of compensation it shall be a good defence that proceedings for the recovery of compensation or damages in respect of the same accident have been instituted by or on behalf of the same person against the same defendant in any part of the British dominions other than New Zealand, or that any claim by or on behalf of the same person against the same defendant for compensation or damages in respect of the same accident under the laws of any part of the British dominions other than New Zealand has been settled by agreement or fully satisfied.

Section fifteen of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the words “or killed,” and substituting the words “unless the injury results in death or serious and permanent disablement.”

Section eighteen of the principal Act is hereby amended as follows:—

Section twenty-two of the principal Act is hereby amended by inserting the following subsection:—

Section twenty-seven of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from subsection two thereof the words “by any other person,” and substituting therefor the words “other person.”

Section sixty-two of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing subsection three, and substituting the following:—

The First Schedule to the principal Act is hereby amended by inserting, immediately before the words “any occupation,” the words “domestic service in which the employment or engagement is for a period of not less than seven days.”

The Second Schedule to the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the words “For the purposes of this Schedule an eye, hand, or foot shall be deemed to be lost if it is rendered permanently and wholly useless,” and substituting therefor the words “For the purposes of this Schedule the expression ‘loss of’ includes ‘permanent loss of the use of.’”