Mr HOWARD - I do not ascribe to the situation the inference of gloom that the honourable gentleman does. Whether a particular estimate made at the time of the Budget is, over the period of the full year, proved to be incorrect either slightly or to a substantial extent is not something that can be finally determined until the end of the financial year. I have already indicated in reply to the honourable member for Bonython that there have been variations which have been due, on the one side, to a series of specific Government decisions and, on the other side, to a shortfall in revenue. In part these were covered by some of the explanations I gave earlier.

If the honourable gentleman is concerned- as I accept he and all other honourable gentlemen on both sides of the House are concerned- about the question of unemployment, I would entreat him and his colleagues inside the Labor movement throughout Australia to take a different attitude to the inter-relationship of wages policy to the levels of unemployment in this country. This Government remains very strongly of the belief that there is a direct link between the level of unemployment and the level of wages. It is a direct link about which we have persistently argued in our submissions to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. I think in comparative terms we have had rather more success in recent days than we have had on other occasions.