My congratulations to you, Mr. Speaker. Your appointment is very well deserved. You will do a great job in the Chair for the House.
I would ask the parliamentary secretary to comment on how much confidence she has in the numbers cited by the leader of the official opposition. He just threw one out here that nearly knocked me out of my chair. He said it cost $750 million to clean up the Sydney tar ponds. The tar ponds had to be cleaned up. The money was allocated under the past Liberal government. The federal government provided $280 million and $120 million came from Premier John Hamm. That is $400 million in total. The leader says it is $750 million. I hope the pilot who will be flying me into Sydney tonight is able to judge a bit better than the Leader of the Opposition. I do not want to hear him say, “We are going to miss the runway. I will be between Sydney harbour and the Mayflower Mall.”
Is this ramped-up rhetoric and bloated fairytales, which are nothing close to reality when it comes to the economy of this country, what we can expect from the leader of the official opposition?