Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Minister for Defence. Will the minister update the House on how the budget has supported the Australian Defence Force—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will resume his seat. I cannot hear the question. Other members wish to listen to it. People listening to the broadcast wish to listen to it, and we will have silence while the question is asked. The member for Cowan.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Minister for Defence. Will the minister update the House on how the budget has supported the Australian Defence Force in developing Australia's youth? Are there any risks to the strategy?

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to 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.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, on a point of order: I think it is unlikely the minister is attempting to attribute any of these issues to you, so he should speak through the chair.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will address remarks through the chair and address people by their correct title.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to 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.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.