Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The other problem with a gap year, and I am sure the member for Gippsland would be concerned about this, is that if you set up a whole system which requires people to take a gap year in order to qualify, many people who go on that gap year actually never go back into education. We should regret the loss of those children from Australian universities. The system that we are putting forward is one that will make a difference to precisely the families that you are talking about. That stands in stark contrast to the opposition who, in government, did nothing to address the student financing system that was seeing regional and rural participation go down. The National Party was complicit in that, watching regional and rural participation go down. We believe in it.

See this speech in context