New South Wales Consolidated Acts

PLANTATIONS AND REAFFORESTATION ACT 1999 - SECT 61

61 Investigations into compliance with this Act or Code

(1) The Minister may authorise appropriately qualified persons ( "authorised officers") to investigate and report to the Minister on whether this Act and the Code are being complied with.

(2) For the purposes of exercising those functions, an authorised officer may, on giving reasonable notice to the owner or manager, enter an authorised plantation and require the owner or manager to provide such information or documents as the officer requires.

(3) The information or documents that can be required by an authorised officer must relate to matters that are reasonably connected with the administration of this Act, or be information or documents required for the purposes of determining whether this Act or the Code is being complied with. This does not extend to information or documents of a commercially sensitive nature.

(4) The owner or manager must not:

(a) fail without reasonable excuse to provide or produce the information or documents required by an authorised officer, or

(b) provide information to an authorised officer which the owner or manager knows is false or misleading in a material respect.

Maximum penalty: 100 penalty units.

(5) A person is not excused from providing information or producing documents under this section on the ground that the information or documents may tend to incriminate the person.

(6) Any information or document obtained from a person under this section is not admissible against the person in criminal proceedings other than proceedings for an offence under this section.

(7) An authorised officer exercising any power under this section must, if requested to do so, produce the officer’s identification card to a person required to provide information or produce documents under this section.