A local government may validly decide differential general rating categories that distinguish between residential land used to provide rental accommodation to permanent residents and land used to provide rental accommodation to itinerants (visitors or tourists), because such a distinction relates to the use of the land rather than the personal characteristics of the occupant. The Xstrata principle that rating categories must be decided by reference to an 'attribute of the land' should be understood as referring to a 'quality of the land or its use' and should not be treated as an implied restriction beyond what the statutory text requires. Section 94(1A) of the LGA, which permits categorisation by reference to whether land is the owner's principal place of residence 'without limiting' the general power, provides strong contextual support for the validity of such categories.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 2 later cases that cite this judgment.