This Act may be cited as the Parliamentary Elections Postponement Act, 1916, and shall be read together with and deemed to form part of the Legislature Act, 1908.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Legislature Act, 1908, the House of Representatives as existing at the passing of this Act shall, unless the General Assembly is sooner dissolved by the Governor pursuant to section forty-four of the Constitution Act, continue for a period of four years, computed from the nineteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fourteen, and no longer.

In computing the population of New Zealand for the purposes of sections sixteen to twenty-three of the Legislature Act, 1908 (relating to the functions of the Representation Commissions), there shall be added to the population, as ascertained as the result of the periodical census to be taken next after the passing of this Act, a number equal to the number of men ordinarily resident in New Zealand who at the date of the taking of such census may be absent from New Zealand with the Expeditionary Force, and the total shall, for the purposes of the said sections, be deemed to be the population of New Zealand.

The number to be added to the population pursuant to the last preceding subsection shall be allocated to the several electoral districts in which such men were ordinarily resident immediately prior to their enlistment for service with the Expeditionary Force.

A certificate under the hand of the Minister of Defence as to the number of men absent from New Zealand with the Expeditionary Force, or as to the number of such men ordinarily resident in any electoral district, shall be accepted by a Representation Commission as final.