Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed. We get unanimous agreement around the chamber on that for Mr Pye. The advice may indicate that certain changes to this bill may be constitutional; however, what I hear when I listen to Senator Waters and other contributors to this debate, and indeed to many commentators in this space, is that people do want to see an exercise of power by the Commonwealth that goes far beyond what was intended in the drafting of our Constitution. I think that is a concern. We do need to appreciate that the challenge we have in this debate is that there are many passionate contributors. We have heard from Senator Heffernan, and most undoubtedly he is one. Senator Nash is another on this side. There are those who are passionate about this topic, and I know that Senator Xenophon, Senator Madigan and Senator Waters are equally as passionate about this topic. But we do have a clash where we have land use powers that are traditionally the domain of the states and that many are seeking to have legislated or dealt with at a federal level. That is a challenge.

However, there has been a lot of concern particular to water, and it is the concern about groundwater that has seen this legislation brought forward. When I listened to the rant from Senator Conroy before—unfortunately, I was not here for the two sitting weeks prior to this week.