This Act may be cited as the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Act, 1943, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Workers’ Compensation Act, 1922 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

This Act shall come into force on the first day of November, nineteen hundred and forty-three.

Nothing in this Act shall apply with respect to claims for compensation or other rights or liabilities in respect of accidents happening before the commencement of this Act.

Section five of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from subsection six, as set out in section six of the Workers’ Compensation Amendment Act, 1936, the words “is earning or is able to earn in some suitable employment or business after the accident”, and substituting the words “is earning after the accident in any employment or business, or is able to earn in some suitable employment provided or found for him after the accident by the employer by whom he was employed at the time of the accident”.

The Compensation Court or a Magistrate shall not grant leave under subsection three of section sixty-two of the Statutes Amendment Act, 1938, to end or diminish the weekly payments of compensation payable to any worker upon the ground that the worker is partially recovered unless—

Notwithstanding anything contained in section sixty-one of the principal Act, where an employer, pursuant to any statutory obligation so to do, pays wages to any worker for any period within the period of his incapacity the following provisions shall apply:—

The Second Schedule to the principal Act is hereby amended by inserting, after the words “The total loss of the sight of one eye. 50 percent.”, the words “The total loss of the lens of an eye. 30 percent.”.

The said Second Schedule is hereby further amended by adding the following paragraph:—

For the purposes of the principal Act a worker’s incapacity resulting from hernia shall be deemed to be incapacity resulting from injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment if the following conditions exist, namely:—

Where the Compensation Court or a Magistrate is satisfied that it is reasonable so to do, the Court or Magistrate may order that a worker’s right to compensation under this section shall cease on a date to be specified in that behalf in the order, being not less than four weeks after the date of the order, unless the worker undergoes a surgical operation for a cure of the hernia.

Where an order is made under the last preceding subsection, the following provisions shall apply:—

The failure of a worker to make any report to his employer in pursuance of the foregoing provisions of this section shall not deprive the worker of any compensation to which he may be otherwise entitled in respect of hernia if the Court considers that the failure was excusable.

Without limiting the provisions of section three of the principal Act, it is hereby declared that where an accident causing personal injury to a worker occurs while he is travelling to or from his work by a means of transport other than a public passenger transport service, and the employer has provided the means of transport for that purpose or has expressly or impliedly authorized its use for that purpose, the accident shall be deemed to arise out of and in the course of the employment.

Where a worker is entitled to compensation under the principal Act in respect of any injury and a registered medical practitioner certifies that he is attending the worker or has examined him and that the worker should receive any medical or surgical treatment that is not available in the town in which the worker resides or which is nearest to his place of residence there shall be payable by the employer, in addition to the compensation and other moneys payable under the principal Act, the reasonable expenses incurred for the transport of the worker to and from the nearest town in which that treatment is available on each occasion on which it is necessary for him to travel to receive that treatment, and for meals necessarily obtained by him away from his place of residence on any such occasion:

Provided that where the employer provides any such transport or meals for the worker no expenses shall be payable to the worker in respect thereof.

The transport expenses so payable shall be calculated at the lowest rate at which the worker can be transported to and from that town by any available public passenger transport service.

The expenses payable to the worker under this section or incurred by the employer in providing any such transport or meals shall not in any case exceed twenty-five pounds.

Except as hereinafter provided, every employer of any worker or workers in any employment to which the principal Act applies shall obtain from an insurance company or person carrying on employer’s liability insurance business in New Zealand a policy of insurance or indemnity indemnifying the employer against his liability in relation to workers’ compensation under the principal Act, and shall keep such a policy in force at all times during the continuance of the employment of any such workers.

Where two or more employers are for the purposes of the principal Act employers of the same worker or workers in any such employment, it shall be a sufficient compliance with the provisions of this section if they obtain and keep in force a joint policy indemnifying both or all of them against their liability as aforesaid.

Every person who fails to comply in any respect with any provision of this section commits an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction for any such offence to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, and to a further fine not exceeding twenty pounds for every day during which the offence continues.

Nothing in the foregoing provisions of this section shall apply with respect to any of the following employers:—

In any case where the Compensation Court is satisfied that any employer has adequate financial resources to meet the whole or any part of all probable claims for compensation under the principal Act, the Court may if it thinks fit grant a certificate exempting the employer wholly or partly from the requirements of this section. Any such certificate may be granted unconditionally or upon or subject to such conditions (whether as to its duration or otherwise) as the Court thinks fit; and the Court may at any time revoke any such certificate or vary, revoke, or add to any such conditions as it thinks fit.