This Act may be cited as the Coal-mines Amendment Act, 1941, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Coal-mines Act, 1925 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

For the purposes of the principal Act there may be appointed as an officer of the Public Service a fit person to be known as the Electrical Inspector of Coal-mines.

It shall be the function of the Electrical Inspector of Coal-mines to inspect electrical apparatus used in coal-mining operations, and for the purpose of enabling him more effectually to carry out his duties the provisions of sections thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, one hundred and thirty-three, one hundred and thirty-four, and one hundred and ninety-seven of the principal Act shall, with the necessary modifications, apply as if he were an Inspector of Coal-mines.

Section two of the principal Act is hereby consequentially amended by adding to the definition of the term “Inspector of Coal-mines” the words “but does not include the Electrical Inspector of Coalmines”.

Every person who in the course of coal-mining operations drills or causes to be drilled a borehole shall forthwith on commencing the work notify the Inspector thereof, at the same time furnishing him with particulars of the location of the borehole, and shall from time to time thereafter as required by the Inspector forward to the Inspector such other particulars as are required.

Where in the course of drilling a borehole a core is obtained, the core, other than material therefrom required for purposes of analysis, shall be labelled in manner prescribed and preserved for at least one year after the completion of the borehole. If no core is obtained, samples of the material obtained in drilling shall be taken in the prescribed manner and labelled and preserved as aforesaid:

Provided that before disposing of any core or samples after the expiry of a year at least two weeks’ notice shall be given to the Minister.

Cores and samples preserved as aforesaid shall at all times be available for examination by the Director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand, or an Inspector, or by any other person authorized in that behalf by the Minister, and specimens may be taken for purposes of analysis or other treatment.

No information obtained pursuant to this section shall be given to any person other than the owner of the land in which the borehole is drilled if the land is freehold, or the licensee if the land is held under a coal-mining right, except with the consent of the Minister, which may be given subject to such conditions as the Minister thinks fit.

Any person authorized either specially or generally by the Minister in that behalf may from time to time during the daytime enter upon any land, with such assistants and such equipment and materials as he thinks fit, for the purpose of making a geological or geophysical survey of such land for coal-mining purposes, and may affix or set up thereon such pegs, marks, or poles as may be required for the purposes of such survey, and may do all other things necessary for such survey or for any inspection or alteration thereof, including the digging of pits and the firing of explosive charges:

Provided that all such pits shall be filled immediately after the purpose for which they were dug has been served and the ground in or on which any such explosive charge has been fired shall, as soon thereafter as practicable, be restored as far as possible to its former condition.

Before entry on any land for the purposes of this section the person authorized as aforesaid shall, if practicable, give reasonable notice to the owner or occupier of that land of his intention to enter thereon, and shall, if required by such owner or occupier, produce the authority under which he claims to enter or has entered on such land.

The owner or occupier of the land shall be entitled to compensation for any damage done in the making of any such survey. In default of agreement the amount of any such compensation shall, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the principal Act, be fixed by the Warden in the case of land situated in a mining district, and in every other case shall be fixed by a Stipendiary Magistrate.

Every person commits an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine of fifty pounds or to imprisonment for three months who—

On or before the thirty-first day of January in every year every limited company that is engaged in coal-mining operations shall forward to the Under-Secretary, on a form to be provided for the purpose, a true statement of the affairs of the company as at the end of its last preceding financial year, accompanied by a certificate from the company’s secretary verifying the statement.

If any company makes default in complying with this section it shall be deemed to have committed an offence against the principal Act.

Section eighty-one of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing subsection two thereof.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Wages Protection and Contractors’ Liens Act, 1939, the owner of a coal-mine who has advanced moneys to a worker employed by him for the purpose of acquiring a home may, with the written consent of the worker, deduct from time to time from his wages such sums as may be agreed upon between the worker and the owner towards repayment of such moneys and the payment of interest and other charges in respect of such loan.

No deduction shall be made under this section unless the terms and conditions on which the moneys were advanced have been approved in writing by the Minister.

With respect to every agreement for the working of a coal-mining right or any part thereof on tribute or on a royalty basis the following provisions shall apply:—

Section forty-three of the principal Act is hereby amended as follows:—

Notwithstanding the provisions of section sixty of the principal Act, where that section permits the appointment of a manager holding any certificate lower than that of a second-class mine-manager, the Inspector, if he considers it expedient to do so in respect of any particular mine, may by notice in writing require the appointment for that mine of a manager holding a higher certificate than that prescribed by the said section for the mine but not in any case higher than a second-class mine-manager’s certificate.

Any notice under this section may at any time in like manner be revoked.

Section sixty-one of the principal Act is hereby amended by adding the following proviso:—

Section ninety-five of the principal Act is hereby amended as follows:—

Section ninety-seven of the principal Act is hereby amended as follows:—

Section one hundred and twenty-eight of the principal Act is hereby amended by inserting in subsection one, after the word “locked”, the word “flame”.

Section one hundred and twenty-nine of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from paragraph (c) of subsection one the words “locked safety-lamp”, and substituting the words “locked flame safety-lamp or other device for the detection of inflammable gas of a type approved by the Chief Inspector”.

Section one hundred and thirty-one of the principal Act is hereby amended by inserting in subsection one, after the word “locked”, the word “flame”.

If at any time the Inspector finds that the percentage of inflammable gas in the general body of the air in any working-place is not less than one and one-half, he may, if he thinks fit, require a ventilation survey to be made of the mine or any part thereof.

If the Inspector is satisfied, with or without such a survey, that it is practicable to reduce the percentage of inflammable gas in the general body of the air in any working-place below one and one-half, he may require the manager to inform him what steps, if any, are proposed to be taken to improve the ventilation in that place and within what period the improvement will be effected.

The Inspector may either require the mine-manager to carry out his proposals for the improvement of the ventilation or he may require such further or other steps to be taken for that purpose as he deems fit.

Any mine-manager who fails or neglects to comply with any requirement made in accordance with this section commits an offence against the principal Act.

Section one hundred and forty-seven of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from subsection two all words after the words “committed by such owner”.

For the purposes of sections one hundred and fifty-two to one hundred and fifty-five of the principal Act a coal-mine shall not include a claystone-mine or a fireclay-mine.

Subsection nine of the said section one hundred and fifty-two is hereby consequentially repealed.

Section six of the Statutes Amendment Act, 1940, is hereby amended by inserting in subsection three, after the words “Inspection of Machinery Act, 1928”, the words “or has had at least twelve months’ actual experience in the operation of an electrically driven winch on an inclined plane or level”.