Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Roberts, as you know—you're a great fan of the Constitution; you often want to quote it to us all ad nauseam—the water entitlements, the allocation of licences and the management of water to particular irrigators is a responsibility, constitutionally, of the states, and so it is the New South Wales government who is responsible for issuing licences to New South Wales irrigators—sorry, through you, Mr President. It is, similarly, the purview of the Victorian and the South Australian governments to do likewise. So I would suggest that, rather than come here with questions that are not related to the Commonwealth's work, you actually pursue those in state parliaments throughout the Murray-Darling Basin.