There's an awkward question the senior men in Labor don't want to answer at the moment.

Despite a record number of Labor women entering cabinet, how is it that the party now finds itself with fewer women in leadership roles than the Liberals, Nationals or the Greens?

Labor, undoubtedly, has put forward a more diverse frontbench than Australia has ever seen before.

However, look a little closer and it's clear this is still very much a party run by the old boys' club.

The leadership comprises the four people who lead Labor in the House of Representatives and Senate.

There are a further three senior leadership positions in the upper and lower houses who oversee the chambers.

The dominance of men — especially from the Right faction — has seen the number of women in both leadership and in cabinet go backwards compared to its last term in opposition.

Women hold just two out of seven leadership positions across the parliament. 

The shadow cabinet has also gone from having gender parity to the new government's cabinet of 10 women and 13 men.

Crunching the numbers

Labor is led by two men in the House of Representatives: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

In the Senate, a chamber that is majority female, Penny Wong is the leader and South Australian Don Farrell has returned to the deputy leadership.

The male dominance in the Lower House extends further, with the Leader of the House, Tony Burke, and his deputy, Mark Butler, both men.

Katy Gallagher is the only other woman in a leadership role in the Senate, where she is the Manager of Government Business.

The Liberal Party has two men and two women in its key leadership roles, while the Nationals have two women in its three-person leadership team.

As he unveiled his frontbench on Tuesday evening, Mr Albanese was in no mood to answer questions about the state of the leadership.

He instead opted to list the women in his cabinet.

Warning signs after last election

The issue of Labor's leadership dates back to after the last election.

Frontbencher Clare O'Neil — a member of the Right faction — wanted to run for her party's deputy leadership but colleagues told her it wasn't her time, leaving Marles to assume the role unchallenged.

It left Labor having an all-male leader-deputy pairing for the first time since 2001 — with a brief exception being when Mr Albanese was Kevin Rudd's deputy in the three months he returned to the prime ministership in 2013.

In the Labor party, the factions pick the frontbenchers and the leader picks their portfolios. 

The faction that wins the most seats get more positions on the frontbench. There is also pressure on the factions to make sure it has geographical representation.

Back in 2019, the NSW Right faction put forward who it wanted to serve in shadow cabinet, leaving then senator Kristina Keneally out of the mix. 

It left Labor facing the prospect of having three out of four leaders being men.

Senator Keneally forced her way onto the frontbench by becoming Labor's deputy leader in the Senate, thanks to factional heavyweight Senator Farrell abandoning his bid to remain in that role.

With Senator Keneally as the deputy in the upper house, Labor sought to champion it had a gender-balanced leadership.

It's not championing that today and, if anything, it actively wants to avoid the conversation.

Senator Keneally was always going to leave that role after this election, as she sought to move to the lower house.

She's, instead, found herself out of the parliament altogether, having failed to win a once-safe seat.

There are other women in the Right faction in the Senate but Labor figures say, privately, none were qualified for leadership.

Leadership not the only metric

Labor lost not only Senator Keneally but also Queenslander Terri Butler at the last election. Both would have been in cabinet if they had been elected.

Their departures have created opportunities for Ms O'Neil to go to cabinet and Anika Wells, Anne Aly and Kristy McBain to go from the backbench to the outer ministry. 

Linda Burney has also become the first Aboriginal woman in cabinet. Ms Aly and Ed Husic are the nation's first Muslim ministers.

Sources have told the ABC that the decision to move Tanya Plibersek, a former deputy leader of the party, from her long-held role in education to environment and water has been seen by some as a demotion.

Mr Albanese, having campaigned on childcare policies, has also dumped that portfolio from his cabinet, moving it to the outer ministry.

While childcare isn't only a women's issue, Labor repeatedly argued throughout the campaign that it was one of the biggest issues that prevented women from returning to the workforce.

Coalition parties facing a similar issue

There’s been no shortage of men speaking about their “strong female team” this week.

The newly installed leaders of the Liberal and Nationals parties — all too aware of how women turned away from the Coalition at the election — repeatedly spoke about the women in their ranks.

New Liberal leader Peter Dutton and the Nationals' new leader, David Littleproud, will have to do more than just talk about the strong women in their ranks.

If they’re ever to reach gender parity, they’ll need to get women into their party in the House of Representatives.

The Nationals have done well to get women into the Senate. The party has six senators, four of whom are women. 

It faces a different story in the lower house, where just two of their 16 representatives are women. 

Women on the Liberal benches were halved at the election.

New Deputy Leader Sussan Ley has already said she is determined to reverse that, vowing to get more women voting for the Liberals and in their parliamentary ranks. 

Albanese vows gender parity will happen 'soon'

A senior Labor man, speaking ahead of the campaign, insisted his party wouldn’t cop lectures from the Coalition about women in senior roles.

Across gender and cultural backgrounds, Labor is well ahead of the Liberal and National parties.

The trouble for his argument is that Labor has set a better standard in getting more women into its party.

It’s also sought to make a political point by criticising the Coalition for failing to do the same. 

However, this record is also why failing to promote more women in the Labor ranks will attract greater scrutiny. 

As it stands, 19 of 42 people on Mr Albanese's frontbench are women.

"I want to see us move towards 50-50 representation across all of the spectrum," Mr Albanese said on Tuesday.

Labor could have achieved a gender-balanced frontbench today. Its factions chose not to.

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