There is hereby established a Board to be called the Transport Co-ordination Board (hereinafter in this Part of this Act referred to as the Board).

The Board shall consist of three members to be appointed by the Minister of Transport, of whom one shall be appointed as Chairman.

Every member of the Board shall be appointed for a term not exceeding three years, but shall be eligible for reappointment unless incapacitated under the next succeeding section.

The Minister may remove any member of the Board from office for inability or misbehaviour.

No person shall be capable of being appointed to be or of being a member of the Board—

If any person does any act as a member of the Board, being incapacitated under the last preceding section, he shall be liable to a fine of fifty pounds, to be recovered with costs of suit by any person in any Court of competent jurisdiction.

Any member of the Board may resign his office by writing under his hand addressed to the Minister, and in such case, or in case of his death or incapacity or removal from office, his office shall become vacant, and shall be filled by appointment by the Minister.

The publication in the Gazette of a notice of appointment of a member of the Board signed by the Minister shall be conclusive evidence of the regularity of appointment of any person whose appointment is thereby notified, and the like publication of a notice of vacation of office shall be conclusive evidence that any person whose vacation of office is thereby notified has resigned his office or has been duly removed therefrom or has otherwise vacated his office in accordance with the terms of such notice.

In the case of illness or absence of the Chairman of the Board, the Minister may appoint such person as he thinks fit (not being a person disqualified for appointment as a member of the Board) to act as Chairman, and the Minister may, in the case of illness or absence of any other member, appoint any person qualified to be appointed to be a member of the Board to act as the deputy of such member.

Every person so appointed shall, while such illness or absence continues, be deemed for all purposes to be a member of the Board.

The provisions of section three hereof shall apply with respect to every person appointed under this section.

The members of the Board shall be paid such allowances as may be prescribed, and all travelling-expenses reasonably incurred by them in respect of their attendance at meetings of the Board and in transacting the business thereof.

All such amounts shall be paid out of moneys to be appropriated by Parliament for the purpose.

The Board shall hold meetings for the transaction of its business at such times as the Board itself by resolution or the Chairman from time to time determines, and no decision of the Board shall be given otherwise than by resolution passed at such a meeting and concurred in by at least two members.

At all meetings of the Board two members (of whom one shall be the Chairman or the Acting-Chairman) shall constitute a quorum.

A copy of any resolution of the Board certified by the Chairman thereof to be correct shall, until the contrary is proved, be sufficient evidence of such resolution in any proceedings.

No act or proceeding of the Board shall be invalidated in consequence of there being a vacancy in the membership thereof at the time of such act or proceeding or the subsequent discovery that any person acting as a member of the Board was then disqualified or had vacated his office.

Save as may be provided by regulations under this Part of this Act or regulations under the Transport Licensing Act, 1931, in relation to appeals against decisions of Licensing Authorities under that Act, the Board may regulate its own procedure.

The Governor-General may from time to time, by Order in Council, make such regulations as he deems necessary for the purposes of this section.

The functions of the Board shall be—

For the purpose of any inquiry or investigation to be made or held by it under the last preceding section the Board shall have all the powers of a Commission under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1908.

The Board may, for any particular purpose, delegate to any of its members or to any person or persons any of the powers of inquiry or investigation conferred upon it by this Act, and the person or persons to whom such delegation is made shall thereupon possess all the powers of the Board with respect to such inquiry or investigation.

This Part of this Act shall be read together with and deemed part of the Transport Licensing Act, 1931 (hereinafter in this Part referred to as the principal Act).

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in subsection two of section five of the principal Act, the Minister may, if he thinks fit, appoint any qualified person to be the sole member of the Central Licensing Authority, and may at any time revoke such appointment.

On the date from which any appointment of any person under the last preceding subsection takes effect the other members (if any) of the Central Authority then in office shall vacate office.

While any person is in office as sole member of the Central Licensing Authority section fourteen of the principal Act shall be deemed to be suspended in respect of that authority. A person appointed under this section as sole member shall cause to be entered in a minute-book a record of all decisions made by him which, if the Central Authority consisted of more than one member, would require to be given by a resolution passed at a meeting thereof. A copy of any entry in such minute-book certified by such sole member to be correct shall, until the contrary is proved, be sufficient evidence in any proceedings under this Act of the decision to which it relates.

Save as provided in the last preceding subsection, all the provisions of the principal Act relating to the Central Licensing Authority shall, with the necessary modifications, apply to any sole member as aforesaid.

The granting of passenger-service licenses shall be a function of the Central Authority in respect of such specified services (whether carried on wholly within one district or within two or more districts) as the Governor-General in Council determines, on the recommendation of the Minister, made after consultation with the Transport Co-ordination Board. Any such determination may in like manner be amended or revoked:

Provided that nothing in this subsection shall apply to any passenger-service carried on wholly within the district of a Metropolitan Authority.

In all other cases the granting of passenger-service licenses shall be a function of—

A Licensing Authority appointed by the Commissioner for the purposes of the last preceding subsection shall, in considering any application for a license, take into account, in addition to the matters mentioned in section twenty-six of the principal Act, any representations made to it by the Licensing Authority of any other district through any part of which the service is to be carried on.

Nothing in paragraph (b) of subsection two hereof shall affect the operation of section twenty-three of the principal Act, but that section shall be read subject to subsection one of this section.

This section is in substitution for section twenty-two of the principal Act, and that section is hereby accordingly repealed.

The principal Act is hereby consequentially amended as follows:—

This section shall come into force on the first day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-four.

All passenger-service and goods-service licenses theretofore granted by the Central Licensing Authority and in force at the commencement of the last preceding section shall continue to have force and effect in accordance with the terms thereof. Any action that may thereafter be required to be taken by a Licensing Authority other than the Central Authority in respect of any such license shall be taken by a Licensing Authority appointed for that purpose by the Commissioner in accordance with subsection two of the last preceding section.

Where after the commencement of the last preceding section any licensed passenger-service or goods-service ceases to be within the jurisdiction of the Licensing Authority by which the license was granted, such license shall continue to have force and effect in accordance with the terms thereof, and any action thereafter required to be taken in respect of such license by any Licensing Authority shall be taken by the Licensing Authority by which an application for renewal of such license would then be considered.

The Transport Appeal Board constituted by section seventeen of the principal Act is hereby abolished, and all appeals under section forty-three of that Act shall hereafter be determined by the Transport Co-ordination Board constituted by this Act, and for that purpose all references to the Transport Appeal Board in the said section forty-three shall be read as references to the Transport Co-ordination Board.

All appeals duly lodged but not determined before the passing of this Act shall be determined by the Transport Co-ordination Board, and shall be so heard and determined notwithstanding that any member of the Board may have been a member of any Licensing Authority against whose decision the appeal was lodged.

The Board in determining any appeal shall not be bound to hear any person or to take any evidence or to receive any representations from any person.

The principal Act is hereby consequentially amended as follows:—

Section forty-three of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing subsections four and five, and substituting the following subsection:—

No application for a license or for the amendment of a license, the granting or making of which would be to affect in any way any determination by the Transport Co-ordination Board of an appeal under section forty-three of the principal Act, shall be dealt with by any Licensing Authority until after the expiration of six months from the date of such determination unless the Board consents thereto on the ground that there has been a material change in the conditions of the service affected since the giving of such determination.

Notwithstanding anything contained in the principal Act, any passenger-service license under that Act may, subject to the provisions of this section, be transferred to any person.

Application for the transfer of any license shall be made in the prescribed form, and the provisions of section twenty-four of the principal Act shall apply to every such application.

The Licensing Authority shall give to every person who, in its opinion, is likely to be affected seven days’ notice of its intention to consider any application for a transfer as aforesaid.

The Licensing Authority, after duly considering the application and any objections thereto, may grant or refuse the transfer of the license, but shall not in any case grant a transfer unless it is satisfied that the proposed transferee is financially able to carry on the service and is likely to carry it on satisfactorily.

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

Subsection one of section twenty of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from paragraph (b) the words “On and after”, and substituting the words “On or after”.

Subsection one of section thirty of the principal Act is hereby amended as follows:—

Section thirty-one of the principal Act is hereby amended as follows:—

Section thirty-four of the principal Act is hereby amended by adding thereto the following subsection:—

Subsection one of section fourteen of the principal Act is hereby consequentially amended by omitting the words “provided in subsection five hereof”, and substituting the words “otherwise specially provided in this Act”.

Subsection one of section thirty-eight of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the words “the actual vehicle or one of the vehicles specified in”, and substituting the words “one of the number and of the capacity authorized to be used by”.

Notwithstanding anything contained in section thirty-eight of the principal Act, the Governor-General may from time to time, by Order in Council, exempt any passenger-service vehicles, or any passenger-service vehicles of a particular type or class, from the requirement of that section as to a certificate of fitness being in force with respect to such vehicles while the same are used in connection with a passenger-service.

In any case where, from a comparison of the goods traffic and passenger traffic respectively and the revenue derived from each by a service for the carriage of both goods and passengers, the Licensing Authority is of opinion that such service is principally a goods-service, and if such service is carried on by vehicles designed chiefly for the carriage of goods, the Licensing Authority may issue a goods-service license in respect thereof endorsed to the effect that the vehicles authorized to be used may in the ordinary course of the goods-service operations, but subject to such conditions (if any) as are specified, carry passengers for hire or reward without a passenger-service license.

For the purpose of enabling it to exercise the power conferred by the last preceding subsection the Licensing Authority may treat an application for a passenger-service license as an application for a goods-service license and deal with the same accordingly.

Every person commits an offence and is fiable to a fine of fifty pounds for each such offence who does any act in any capacity as agent for any passenger-service or goods-service which may be lawfully carried on only pursuant to a license under the principal Act if at the time of his doing such act such a license is not in force in respect of such service.

If at any time the Governor-General in Council is satisfied that persons are being carried by motor-vehicle in such a manner as in effect to constitute a regular public service, he may, whether or not persons are being so transported for hire or reward of any kind, declare such manner of transport to be the carrying-on of a passenger-service within the meaning of the principal Act, and thereupon it shall be unlawful for any person in any part of New Zealand so to transport passengers, save pursuant to the authority and in conformity with the terms of a passenger-service license granted under Part II of that Act.

Any such declaration may at any time be revoked.

For the purposes of section forty-seven of the principal Act sections fifteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and thirty of this Act shall be deemed to form part of Part II of the principal Act.