This Act may be cited as the Post and Telegraph Amendment Act, 1947, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Post and Telegraph Act, 1928 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

For the purposes of any appeal under section two hundred and thirty-seven of the principal Act the fact that any officer has at any time since the third day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, been absent from duty in the Department by reason of service in any of His Majesty’s Forces or by reason of service in any other Government Department on account of causes arising out of the war shall not be taken into account in determining his experience or his efficiency or his suitability for appointment to any position for which he would have been eligible if he had not been absent from duty.

Without limiting the general power conferred on the Governor-General in Council by section two hundred and thirty of the principal Act to make regulations for giving effect to Division III of that Act, it is hereby declared that regulations may be made under that section providing that membership of the Post and Telegraph Employees’ Association and Officers’ Guild Incorporated shall be a condition of employment or of continued employment in the Department of employees other than officers appointed by the Governor-General, and making such provisions as may be deemed necessary or expedient in relation thereto.

Every person who is obliged to become a member of the Association under regulations made pursuant to this section shall be entitled to become a member of the Association on application made in accordance with its rules, and, in so far as the rules of the Association are inconsistent with the provisions of this subsection, the rules shall be of no effect.

The Minister may exempt, either unconditionally or upon or subject to such conditions as the Minister thinks, fit, any employee or class of employees from the provisions of any regulations made pursuant to this section.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any other Act, in any case where any employee fails to apply for membership of the Association as required by any regulations made pursuant to this section or in any case where an employee who is a member of the Association fails to pay any fees due by him as a member thereof to the Association, the Minister may authorize to be deducted from the salary or wages of that employee, and paid to the Association, the amount of the fees which would have been payable by him if he had become a member of the Association or, as the case may be, the amount of the fees owing by him as a member of the Association.

Paragraph (b) of subsection one of section ninety-five of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the words “Public Works Fund”, and substituting the words “Public Works Account or the National Development Loans Account”.

Section ninety-six of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing subsection two thereof.

Section one hundred and twenty-three of the principal Act is hereby amended by inserting in paragraph (a) of subsection one, after the words “or detains”, the words “or destroys”.

Subsection one of section one hundred and fifty-one of the principal Act is hereby amended as follows:—

Section one hundred and ninety-four of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing paragraph (a) of subsection two thereof, as set out in section sixty-three of the Statutes Amendment Act, 1945, and substituting the following paragraph:—