Ex‑SAS veteran proposes national service 'gap year' for Australian high‑school students

A former Special Air Services soldier who served three decades in the Australian Army has urged the government to consider offering a nationwide military‑style "gap year" to high‑school students, saying the experience could provide skills, structure and camaraderie for young people at risk of leaving school early or reoffending.

Harry Moffitt, who completed 11 tours of duty and spent almost 1,000 days on combat operations, spoke on the Neil Mitchell Asks Why podcast and said he had raised the proposal with several Labor ministers. He said he would be "sympathetic to a universal or nationwide gap year offering at every school as an option at the end of Year 10," but added he did not intend to make participation compulsory and preferred the term "gap year" over "national service."

Moffitt, now a qualified psychologist, said a structured year of military‑awareness training could be "meaningful, purposeful" and teach skills he believes many young people lack. He pointed to existing Australian Defence Force initiatives for school leavers — a paid ADF gap year for 17‑ to 24‑year‑olds that he said attracted more than 700 participants last year and pays about $50,000 annually — as a model for wider rollout.

He argued the program could target students who leave school at Year 10 and juveniles at risk of reoffending, offering a combination of discipline, shared adversity and teamwork that he described as life‑changing. Moffitt said the emphasis was not on "militarism" but on the benefits that come from shared training and hardship.

Moffitt also proposed an implementation model that would not rest solely on Defence or government funding. He suggested a partnership involving industry and academia, saying defence contractors and large companies could be asked to contribute resources rather than solely profiting from taxpayer money. "Get them to pour in," he said. "You want to build tanks for us, come and help build this program."

The former soldier, who was wounded in an explosion in Afghanistan in 2008 that killed a fellow serviceman, acknowledged his campaign has so far drawn little support from government figures. He urged ministers to consider the proposal and criticised what he called bureaucratic reluctance to fund broad social programs.

Moffitt said the initiative should be framed as nation‑building and a generational investment that could yield long‑term benefits, but he stopped short of advocating mandatory conscription. He described the idea as an optional, school‑based offering at the end of Year 10 that would give young people an alternative pathway.

He has discussed the proposal publicly and reportedly raised it with several Labor ministers, but there has been no public statement from the government endorsing the plan. The idea adds to ongoing debates about how best to support students at risk of disengagement and reduce youth offending, and whether structured national programs can help bridge skills and opportunity gaps.

Moffitt's proposal follows broader interest in schemes that combine civic, vocational and personal development for young people, but any expansion of military‑style training for school leavers would require detailed design work, costings and political agreement before implementation. For now, the former SAS soldier says he will continue pressing his case and believes a gap‑year option could be an important intervention for vulnerable cohorts of young Australians.