Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) Subject to any provision to the contrary in his or her agreement and to subsection (2), a seaman entered on board a ship shall, after all lawful deductions have been made:
(a) be paid, on the first day of each month, the wages earned by the seaman during the period that commenced on the sixteenth day, and ended on the last day, of the month last preceding that month; and
(b) be paid, on the sixteenth day of each month, the wages earned by the seaman during the period that commenced on the first day, and ended on the fifteenth day, of that month.
(2) Where, on a day on which a seaman is required to be paid wages under subsection (1), the ship on which he or she is entered is not in port, or is in a port at which there is no bank, the seaman shall be paid the wages within a period of 24 hours after the arrival of the ship at a port at which there is a bank.
(3) Subject to subsection (5), if a payment of wages is not made to a seaman at or before the time when the payment is required to be made to the seaman under the preceding provisions of this section, he or she is entitled to recover from the owner or master of the ship, in addition to the wages due to the seaman, a sum equal to 2 days' pay for each of the days, not including days in excess of 14, during which payment of the wages is delayed beyond that time or such lesser sum as the Court thinks just in the circumstances.
(4) An amount which a seaman is entitled to recover under subsection (3) may be recovered in the same Court and in the same manner as wages due to the seaman.
(5) It is a defence to an action for the recovery of an amount under subsection (3) if the person against whom the action is brought satisfies the Court:
(a) that:
(i) the seaman became entitled to the payment of wages on a day on which it was impracticable for moneys with which to pay the wages to be obtained by the master from a bank in the port in which the ship lay; and
(ii) the wages were paid as soon as practicable after that day; or
(b) that the delay in payment of the wages was due to the seaman's act or default, to a reasonable dispute as to liability for the wages or to any other cause not attributable to the wrongful act or default of the owner or master of the ship.
(6) In this section:
"wages" , in relation to a seaman, does not include a payment or allowance for the working of overtime or any other payment or allowance not included in the ordinary wages of the seaman.