One thing Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton says he won’t do

Peter Dutton has acknowledged the Liberals need to do better with women but has ruled out one thing to win them back.

Peter Dutton has stamped out the use of quotas to boost the number of Liberal women in parliament despite his deputy promising to raise the issue.

The newly minted Liberal leader unveiled his frontbench containing 10 women on Sunday.

It matches the record-breaking number of women promoted to cabinet by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week.

Mr Dutton flagged the party would need to work harder to recruit women but closed the door on implementing quotas.

Mr Dutton said the loss of Liberal women at the election ‘pained’ him. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Tracey Nearmy

He said the Liberals were “at a disadvantage” because the party’s election candidates did not have jobs in the union movement, or with super funds, to fall back on if they lost.

“Business won’t do that for the Liberal Party. A small businesswoman who is juggling an overdraft and trying to get her business up and running can’t afford to take six weeks off for a campaign because her business goes broke,” he told ABC radio.

“So we need to come up with a different model, and that in my mind is the biggest inhibitor.”

He said he was “proud” that the women on his frontbench were promoted based on talent.

It comes just a week after his deputy, Sussan Ley, signalled she would take the issue of quotas to the next party room meeting.

Ms Ley has previously called for a 40 per cent gender quota in preselections.

Speaking to ABC News, new assistant climate spokeswoman Hollie Hughes said the party needed to do better to ensure women were preselected for safe seats.

Liberal senator Hollie Hughes said she was torn on quotas. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“I do think we have a lot of women who run in marginal seats that, as you‘ve seen, we’ve lost government so obviously we’ve lost seats,” she said.

Asked if she supported quotas, Senator Hughes indicated she was torn on the issue.

“I was never a fan of quotas previously. I did start to think maybe we needed to look at something,” she said

“That said … we do have a very, very strong group of women in the Senate from the Liberal Party.

“I would like to see more women in safe seats, but what‘s a safe seat these days? I think this election has just shown us, you know, they can change on a whim.”