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

Let me thank the member for Cowan for his question and acknowledge his service to our nation in uniform. As a fellow military graduate from RMC Duntroon, he would be happy to know that not only is this graduating class today the 124th; but it has been 100 years since RMC graduates actually graduated from that august institution.

It has been a great pleasure recently to launch the ADF gap year, a key election policy from this side of the chamber, a policy we are proud of and a policy I had the privilege to recently launch at Mitchelton State High School with the member for Ryan and the member for Brisbane. We are proud of the ADF gap year because it is aimed at school leavers to give those young Australians the opportunity to experience life in the Defence Force and to learn skills that will, hopefully, help them get a job if not in the ADF then in the wider workforce in the country.

The program was conceived and it was begun during the Howard years. The gap year was and is again now a program that gives young people an opportunity—professional training, life skills, friends—so you would expect those opposite to support it. Unfortunately, that was not the case. In the early years of the last, wretched, government they had the good sense to leave it alone. You had the good sense to do nothing. But you couldn't help yourselves, could you? You turned Joel's—sorry, the member for Hunter's Force 2030 into Force 2045, you cut $25 billion from the budget and you cut the ADF gap year.

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