Tony Abbott is urging the Liberal party to preselect more women to boost their numbers in the federal parliament.
The prime minister said the party must become less “blokey” and, while not imposing a quota, it must aim at increasing the number of women in the parliament and the ministry.
“If we don’t get the percentage of women up, we will be letting ourselves down,” Abbott told a Liberal function in Adelaide on Saturday.
He said merit must remain the driving factor in choosing candidates, but the party had to give a fair go to politically interested and able women if it is to be the best it can be.
“If even the Australian army can become less blokey, then so must we,” he said.
“To be serious about winning elections, we must be more serious about engaging, preselecting and sending to parliament the representatives of 50% of the electorate.
“It would be entirely reasonable for our party to have, not a quota, but a target to increase the number of women in the parliament and in our government at every opportunity.”
Abbott said those opportunities must also include increasing the number of women within the ministry at every reshuffle.
An internal party report is being prepared to make the Liberal party more representative and Abbott said he hoped it will include specific steps and targets to lift female parliamentary numbers.
“We need to have a platitude-free conversation within our party about how we can make more of ourselves by making more of those women who are natural Liberals,” he said.
Upon becoming prime minister in September 2013, Abbott appointed himself the minister for women. He was widely criticised for only including one woman – Julie Bishop – in his 19-strong cabinet.
At the time Abbott said he was “disappointed” there were not “at least two” women in the cabinet, but he expected women to be promoted over time.
In December 2014 Sussan Ley became the second woman on Abbott’s frontbench after the prime minister elevated her to the health and sport portfolio and into cabinet.
Less than a quarter of federal Liberal MPs are women.
At last month’s Labor conference, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, declared his party would set a target of 50% women Labor MPs by 2025.
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, reacted to Labor’s move by admitting the Liberal party had “suffered” from not having enough women, but rejected suggestions the party needed a target. The attorney general George Brandis, also rejected the implementation of a quota.
However the minister assisting the prime minister for women, Michaelia Cash, said the Liberal party should look at targets.
“I don’t think we’re afraid and I don’t think we’re unwilling,” she said. “I think it is a conversation that we need to have. Of course the Liberal party can do more, and I’m not going to stand here and say no, because the statistics indicate that clearly we should do more.”
The parliamentary library produced a comprehensive report on the representation of women in Australian politics in 2014, which examined politicians across federal and state parliaments.
From a high point of 30.8% in 2009, the proportion of women in Australian parliaments declined to 29% in 2013.
Abbott has long sought to shake claims he has a “woman problem”. In October 2012, the then prime minister, Julia Gillard, told Abbott, the opposition leader, that if he wanted to know what misogyny looked like he should pick up a mirror.
