This Act may be cited as the Scenery Preservation Amendment Act, 1933, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Scenery Preservation Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

Subsection two of section two of the Scenery Preservation Amendment Act, 1926, is hereby amended by omitting the words “or to opossums”.

The power conferred on the Minister by the said section two as amended by the last preceding subsection may be exercised in respect of opossums, anything to the contrary in the Animals Protection and Game Act, 1921–22, notwithstanding.

Every person who lights on any land (including a public highway) adjoining any reserve under the principal Act, or being the owner or occupier of such adjoining land permits to be lighted thereon, a fire which spreads into and destroys any bush on or seriously damages such reserve is liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, and shall in addition be liable to pay for all damage done.

This section is in substitution for section fourteen of the principal Act and that section is hereby accordingly repealed.

Every person is liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds and shall in addition be liable to pay for all damage done, and the full market value of any timber unlawfully cut or removed, who, at any time after any land becomes a reserve under the principal Act, or the gazetting of any notice under section twenty-two of the Public Works Act, 1928, describing any private land intended to be taken or acquired as a reserve,—

This section is in substitution for section fifteen of the principal Act, and that section and section six of the Scenery Preservation Amendment Act, 1910, section three of the Scenery Preservation Amendment Act, 1915, and subsection three of section two of the Scenery Preservation Amendment Act, 1926, are hereby consequentially repealed.

Notwithstanding anything in the Justices of the Peace Act, 1927, or in any other Act to the contrary, any information in respect of any offence against this Act or the principal Act, or against any regulation made under the principal Act, may be laid at any time within four years after the last day of the year in which the offence was committed.

The owner of any private land may at any time apply to the Minister for such land to be declared to be a private reserve under this section.

The Minister, if satisfied that such land possesses scenic or historic interest and is sufficiently fenced, or is otherwise protected from damage by stock, may thereupon recommend the Governor-General to declare by Warrant under his hand such land to be a private reserve, and the Governor-General may make such declaration accordingly. Any such Warrant may in like manner at any time be revoked.

While any such Warrant remains in force sections three, four, and five of this Act shall apply to the private reserve in all respects as if it were a reserve under the principal Act, notwithstanding that the land comprised therein may be sold or otherwise disposed of:

Provided that in its application to any such private reserve the said section four shall be read subject to any agreement between the owner of such reserve and the Minister preserving to such owner or his successors in title the right to do any act or thing forbidden by than section.