Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, 53 per cent of those in the gap year went on to serve in the permanent active force. This is what you cut. A third of those who joined the gap year were women. That is what Labor cut. The most successful female recruitment program the ADF has ever run is what Labor cut. Forty-eight per cent of those young ladies that went into the gap year then went on to serve either permanent or part time, yet the member for Canberra had the temerity weeks ago to attack us about challenges in recruiting women when the women recruitment levels have gone up under this government. Where were you, Member for Canberra, when the gap year was cut? Where was the member for Sydney when the gap year was cut? The most successful recruitment for women in the ADF—and where was the member for Sydney or the member for Canberra? Two-and-half-thousand young Australians have signed up to the gap year this time around and 35 per cent of them are young women.

We are proud to bring back the highly successful gap year. And I say to the Leader of the Opposition: it's a shame you didn't have a chance to do the gap year, otherwise you would have learned a thing or two about leadership.

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