Mates Rates 2: Electric Boogaloo: WA Supreme Court rules occupied miscellaneous licences are rateable

Occupied miscellaneous licences over Crown land are rateable, following the recent decision of the Western Australian Supreme Court in Shire of Mount Magnet v Atlantic Vanadium Pty Ltd [2025] WASC 274 on the proper construction of the Local Government Act 1995 (WA).

Background

The unwieldy section 6.26 of the Local Government Act 1995 (WA) (LGA) provides:

6.26. Rateable land

1. Except as provided in this section all land within a district is rateable land.
2. The following land is not rateable land —
   1. land which is the property of the Crown and —
      1. is being used or held for a public purpose; or
      2. is unoccupied, except —
         1. where any person is, under paragraph (e) of the definition of owner in section 1.4, the owner of the land other than by reason of that person being the holder of a prospecting licence held under the Mining Act 1978 in respect of land the area of which does not exceed 10 ha or a miscellaneous licence held under that Act;

Paragraph (e) of the definition of “owner” in section 1.4 of the LGA includes the holder of a mining tenement under the Mining Act 1978.

Recent Developments

In Shire of Mount Magnet v Atlantic Vanadium Pty Ltd [2025] WASC 274, the Shire of Mount Magnet (Shire) successfully argued before the Western Australian Supreme Court (Court) that, on a proper construction of section 6.26 of the LGA, miscellaneous licences are only unrateable when they fall within the exemption for unoccupied Crown land. That is, on its proper construction, the exclusion of miscellaneous licences in section 6.26(2)(a)(ii)(I) placed miscellaneous licences back within section 6.26(2)(a)(ii): they are unrateable when held over Crown land and unoccupied but otherwise rateable. In preferring the Shire’s construction, the Court rejected Atlantic Vanadium’s construction that the effect of section 6.26(2)(a)(ii)(I) was to render a miscellaneous licence unrateable regardless of whether or not it was occupied.

The Court’s decision reverses the first instance decision of the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) in Atlantic Vanadium Pty Ltd v Shire of Mount Magnet [2024] WASAT 16 which found that miscellaneous licences are not rateable regardless of whether they are occupied (that decision was covered in our May 2024 bulletin). For miscellaneous licence holders, the sequel is never as good as the original (but for local governments, the Court’s decision will be welcomed with open arms).

Unfortunately, neither the Court nor the SAT before it considered in any detail what constitutes ‘unoccupied’ in the context of miscellaneous licences, and the question has not been answered in any previous case.

Implications

The WA Local Government Minister has announced an intention to introduce amendments to the LGA to parliament to exclude miscellaneous licences from the relevant definition of rateable land. Atlantic Vanadium has also appealed the Court’s decision.

In the meantime, it appears local governments may levy rates on occupied miscellaneous licences within their boundaries, and can seek to levy those rates for the current financial year and five proceeding financial years. Miners should carefully consider whether their miscellaneous licences are occupied (a fact-specific inquiry) and whether there are grounds to object to any rates notices they receive over miscellaneous licences they hold.