Australia's newly elected conservative prime minister, Tony Abbott, has been officially sworn in amid criticism of the lack of women in his cabinet.
Just one of his 19-strong front bench is a woman, Julie Bishop, the minister for foreign affairs. There is no cabinet portfolio for women. Instead, responsibility for women's issues will be held by Abbott in the prime minister's office.
In a statement, Abbott said it would ensure that this "key whole-of-government priority" is at "the centre of government".
The move has been roundly criticised by the opposition Labor party, which has long branded Abbott as out of touch with women.
"Women aren't getting the same deal as men in our society," said the former senior Labor minister Bill Shorten, describing the new cabinet as a "sort of Dad's army".
"Tony Abbott has just lowered the glass ceiling for women's expectations in Australia," he said.
On Monday, Abbott defended the paltry representation of women when his cabinet was first announced.
"Plainly, I am disappointed that there are not at least two women in the cabinet," Abbott said.
"Nevertheless there are some very good and talented women knocking on the door of the cabinet and there are lots of good and talented women knocking on the door of the ministry," he said.
"You can expect to see as time goes by more women in both the cabinet and the ministry."
Australia now ranks behind Afghanistan (three women in cabinet), China (two) and Zimbabwe (five) according to a graphic published by Labor. Britain has four female members of cabinet.
Abbott has appointed two women to his outer ministry – including one who becomes "minister assisting the prime minister for women" – but of the government's 12 parliamentary secretaries, only one is a woman and she was demoted to that position.
The prominent media commentator and Australian of the year Ita Buttrose was scathing: "You can't have that kind of parliament in 2013. It's unacceptable," she told the ABC.
In a bizarre twist, government sources told the Guardian that opposition forces were partly to blame for the lack of women in Abbott's government.
One of his shadow ministers, Sophie Mirabella, who had been expected to take up a cabinet portfolio, lost her seat at the 7 September election to an independent, Cathy McGowan.
"All this talk of a lack of women in cabinet – that's a direct consequence of Cathy McGowan winning," the source said.
On the night of the election, Mirabella claimed that an alliance of the Greens, Labor, unions and the activist group GetUp! had conspired to topple her in favour of McGowan. "We warned of the bad consequences of putting an independent into [Mirabella's seat] and we'll now see those play out," a senior coalition staffer said.
McGowan denied she was responsible for the lack of representation of women. "I can't take any responsibility for Tony Abbott's choices," she told the Guardian.
During his three years as opposition leader, Abbott repeatedly polled worse with women than with men. He was famously the target of the former prime minister Julia Gillard's sexism and misogyny speech to parliament last year, when she told him if he wanted to know what misogyny in modern Australia looked like, he should get a mirror.
She criticised his suggestions that men were more adapted to "exercise authority or to issue a command" than women. She also attacked his suggestion that abortion was the "easy way out".
During the election campaign, Abbott tried to insulate himself from suggestions that he was out of touch with women by surrounding himself with his three adult daughters – then said he was "the guy with the not bad-looking daughters".
He also quipped that one of his female MPs had "sex appeal" and wasn't "just a pretty face".
An email from Abbott to Liberal party supporters on Wednesday night said his government was "committed to make your life better and our country stronger". It outlined a list of his priorities. There were no references to women, in cabinet or otherwise.
