Abbott Chooses Glass Ceiling Cabinet

Tony Abbott has not even been sworn in as Prime Minister yet, but he is already under fire from his own side over a cabinet line-up that includes just one woman.

The new Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is one of six women in the 42-strong ministry but the only woman in Cabinet.

Mr Abbott admits it is far from perfect but he says all MPs need to earn their right to promotion.

But past and outgoing female Liberal senators have protested loudly on their behalf.

"I think it's shocking and I think it's embarrassing, and it's not just embarrassing nationally but I think it's embarrassing internationally," Senator Sue Boyce, who will retire next July, said.

"I would hasten to add I do not see this as Prime Minister-elect Abbott's problem, I think it's a system issue for our party."

Former Liberal senator Judith Troeth says the line-up sends a bad signal that the party cannot have more professional women active in the upper reaches of Parliament.

"I mean this is running the country, now why aren't women equally as good at that as men are?" she said.

Mr Abbott said he was "disappointed" there were not at least two women in the Cabinet.

"To encourage business and the ASX to actively seek and promote women in business, and then to not have them in the one body that runs the country, which is federal Cabinet, to me is hypocrisy," Ms Troeth said.

These women have long memories - a record number of Coalition females MPs were elected in 1996 in a John Howard landslide, yet only two women were appointed to Cabinet.

Almost two decades on, Mr Abbott has halved that representation - Ms Bishop.

Ms Troeth says she still thinks "men like to run the show".

"I think men have an innate fear of capable women at that level, not telling them what to do or certainly putting their views forward and perhaps some of those views being adopted as government policy," she said.

Senator Boyce added: "I think the problem is that it demonstrates our preselection processes are stuck in the 19th century almost, not even the 20th century."

It was a sentiment echoed by the Opposition, with acting Labor leader Chris Bowen saying Mr Abbott has taken Australia backwards by including only one woman in Cabinet.

"The cabinet of Afghanistan now has more women in it than the Cabinet of Australia," he said.

"This is a sad day for the senior representation of women in Australian politics."

ACTU president Ged Kearney says she is also surprised and disappointed.

"I hope this isn't reflective of his government's views on women and the need to promote women in roles of management and importance in the government and generally, but also for working women who struggle every day with things like a gender pay gap and certain imbalances in the workforce," she said.