The leadership of both major parties will continue to be "male, pale and stale" if it does not do more to address a lack of cultural diversity, according to South Australia's former deputy premier, Vickie Chapman.
While the South Australian Liberal Party was looking for ways to increase the number of female MPs in the lower house from just two, Ms Chapman said looking at gender imbalances wasn't enough.
"I think because we've become such a narrow base now in our membership, and the Labor Party are the same, both major parties have lost primary vote support, election after election," she said.
"Both of us need to get out together on cultural diversity, otherwise we'll continue to have the male, pale, stale fabric of our political leadership."
Ms Chapman was speaking at the South Australian launch of a new Liberal women's network, which aims to increase the party's female membership.
Hilma's Network — named after suffragette Hilma Molyneux Parkes — was founded by former Sky News journalist Charlotte Mortlock.
"We know that the average is a 37-year-old female but our Liberal Party member average is a male in his 60s," Ms Mortlock said.
"What I think is clear is that the voice of females has not been loud enough and that is because we don't have that conduit between membership and the party, and I think that is actually affecting the policies that we create."
The network's aim is to create a "rapid influx" of female Liberal Party members, in the hope it will both influence policy and pre-selections.
That's something Liberal women in South Australia hope to see, where the loss of marginal seats — combined with the replacement of Ms Chapman with a man in the safe seat of Bragg — left the party with just two female MPs in the House of Assembly.
Following the Bragg by-election, the party established a women's taskforce that later made a series of recommendations to boost the number of women, but rejected enforceable quotas in favour of targets.
Ms Mortlock pointed out that now is not the first time the Liberal Party has set targets.
"They have not held themselves to account and, if we're going to do targets again, because no-one wants to do quotas, then that's fine, but there has to be a level of accountability," she said.
"We need to be seeing regular reporting on that, on how we're tracking.
"We don't want to be in this same position in again in 10 years' time."
Helping to expand Hilma's Network into South Australia is former Liberal staffer and lawyer Anna Finizio.
While many women in the party have avoided explicitly backing quotas, Ms Finizio said she'd like to see something more enforceable.
"Personally, I'm in favour of affirmative action and I do want to see more women step up to the plate and I want a good pathway for them to do so," Ms Finizio said.
"I'd like to see some strong action, whatever you want to call it — a 'quota', a 'target' — but it has to be hard, it has to be measured and accountable."
While Ms Finizio is hoping Hilma's Network will help boost the party's female membership, she may be looking to boost the number of female MPs sooner.
She has been widely touted as a front runner for pre-selection in the eastern suburbs seat of Dunstan, when former premier Steven Marshall retires.
"Steven Marshall is an excellent local member," Ms Finizio said.
"He continues to fly the flag for South Australia — even since we've lost government — looking for opportunities for our state and certainly I'm open to opportunities as they arise in the future."
Earlier this month Opposition Leader David Speirs said he did not believe there would be a by-election in Dunstan this year, but said it would be "critical" that Mr Marshall was replaced by a woman.
