This Act may be cited as the Public Revenues Amendment Act, 1912, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Public Revenues Act, 1910 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

Section forty-six of the principal Act is hereby repealed.

Section forty-seven of the principal Act is hereby amended by adding the following subsection:—

Section seventy-five of the principal Act is hereby amended by adding to subsection three thereof the following proviso:—

Section one hundred and thirty-two of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the words “one hundred thousand pounds,” and substituting the words “two hundred thousand pounds.”

Subject to the provisions of this section the Minister of Finance shall, before the end of the present financial year, and on the first day of April in each financial year thereafter, without further appropriation than this Act, pay to the Public Trustee out of the Consolidated Fund the sum of ten thousand pounds.

All such sums shall form part of the common fund of the Public Trust Office, and shall, with the accumulations thereon be applied in such amounts as may be voted by Parliament to the rebuilding or restoration of public buildings destroyed or damaged by fire.

If at any time the moneys paid to the Public Trustee under this section and for the time being unexpended amount to the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, no further payments shall be made in pursuance of this section until the said moneys are reduced to less than one hundred thousand pounds:

Provided that if at any time such moneys are in excess of ninety thousand pounds but are less than one hundred thousand pounds, there shall be payable under this section only the amount of the difference between the said moneys and one hundred thousand pounds.

The Audit Office may, in the exercise of the powers conferred upon it by section one hundred and nineteen of the principal Act (relating to the audit of the accounts of local authorities), dispense with the production of a personal receipt for wages in cases where not less than fifty persons are employed and paid by a local authority, if, in respect of the payment of those persons, a voucher is produced setting forth the names of the persons to or on whose behalf the wages were paid and the amount of each such payment, and signed by two or more persons who shall certify on the voucher that they were present when the moneys included in the voucher were paid.

For the purposes of this section “wages” means any moneys paid in return for services rendered where the amount payable in each case is determined by a fixed hourly, daily, or weekly rate.

If it appears to the Audit Office that any moneys belonging to or administrable by a local authority have been unlawfully expended or applied or that any liability has been unlawfully incurred by a local authority, the Audit Office shall surcharge with the amount thereof every member of the local authority jointly and severally, and shall notify every such member of the surcharge and of the time within which the same must be satisfied.

The amount of any such surcharge which remains unsatisfied at the expiration of the time so allowed shall be deemed to be a debt due to the Crown, and the Audit Office shall take such proceedings as the case requires for the recovery thereof.

In any such proceedings it shall be a good defence if the defendant proves that the moneys were expended or applied, or that the liability was incurred, either—

It shall also be a good defence in any such proceedings if the defendant proves that in being a party to the authorization of any such expenditure, application, or liability he acted in good faith and in accordance with the written advice of the solicitor of the local authority.

All costs incurred by the Audit Office in any such proceedings shall be paid out of the ordinary fund of the local authority, and all moneys and costs recovered in any such proceedings shall be paid into and form part of the said ordinary fund.

This section is in substitution for section one hundred and twenty of the principal Act, which section is hereby accordingly repealed, but shall continue to apply to all expenditure unlawfully made and to all liability unlawfully incurred by any local authority before the commencement of this Act.