and arrangements with the private sector through a constitutional entrenchment of the public responsibilities for water (Sections 96, 97 Constitution Act 1975 Vic). Such a view of property, state control and private property that emerges from the foregoing analysis represents a more nuanced approach to 'property rights' and the gradations of 'privatisation'. Many analyses of rights in water tend to concentrate upon the imposition of private property rights without proper regard to the wider context in which such rights exist. These analyses typically move to focus upon 'private property', security, trade, transfer and transactional arrangements without duly recognising the relationship of such rights in the context of state 'ownership'; which, in turn, must be conceived more widely than simply as a conduit from the vesting of the water resource to points of allocation to individuals. What then is normative role of the state in articulating property in water? For whom does the state 'act' and in what capacity? Many answers are conceivable: Current urban water consumers? Current business interests? Water users beyond the immediate urban spatial scope? Future generations of water users? The environment? Consequently, if the state is held to hold an atypical 'common property' in water, it becomes important to explore how water might need to be considered under a broader rubric of state responsibility as part of its 'invisible' hand in the market. Clearly there are public-interest outcomes that markets, when constructed as the aggregation of consumer preferences, simply cannot achieve. Typically, markets do well in allocation