A full third of all the women in the coalition party room are now in Scott Morrison's federal cabinet after he added a record seventh woman to the government's inner circle.
Emergency Management Minister Linda Reynolds has come in from the outer ministry to take over Steve Ciobo's job as Defence Industry Minister on Saturday.
"This now makes our cabinet the strongest level of female representation in the history of federation, and that is something that I would intend to continue should we be elected at the election in May," Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra on Saturday.
Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull had six women in their cabinets.
Senator Reynolds, who was a brigadier in the Australian Army, will also become Defence Minister if the coalition wins the next election.
"To every woman in the Liberal Party today ... you don't need to be a quota. If you are good enough, you can get in," Senator Reynolds told reporters.
"I have been appointed not because of my agenda but because of my experience, and we have got many other women who equally are capable, and what the prime minister has done is demonstrated to them that they too can succeed because they have the talent."
There are currently 21 women in the coalition party room - seven are now in cabinet, five others hold ministry or administrative positions, and two are former ministers.
But at least eight of those 21 women are retiring at the next election or face losing their seats.
Mr Morrison praised the preselection of a number of women candidates in Victoria and Tasmania, including the choice of Dr Katie Allen to replace the outgoing Kelly O'Dwyer.
But Labor frontbencher Penny Wong said there was clearly a problem when only one in five coalition MPs was a woman.
"The Liberal party seem to have this problem with preselecting women, seem to have a problem with promoting women and seem to have a problem with actually having women in their partyroom," she told reporters in Adelaide.
Mr Ciobo told Sky News he would like a woman to replace him in his safe Liberal seat of Moncrieff on the Gold Coast.
"I would love for it to be a women, I think there are some terrific women around who are interested in running for the seat," Mr Ciobo said.
