Any person who obtains any goods, money, credit, benefit or advantage by passing a cheque which is not paid on presentation is guilty of an offence carrying a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment or $10,000 fine [Summary Offences Act 1953 s.39].

A defence exists if a person can show that at the time he or she had reasonable grounds for believing the cheque would be paid in full on presentation and he or she had no intent to defraud. The fact that at the time when the cheque was passed there were some funds to the credit of the account on which the cheque was drawn is not of itself a defence.