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AAP
AAP
Politics
Phoebe Loomes

NSW treasurer 'hypocrite' on board quotas

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean's criticism of gender balance on boards has now been directed back at him. (AAP)

The NSW treasurer has been accused of failing to meet his own targets, after he named and shamed companies for a lack of female leadership and urged them to implement gender quotas on their boards.

Matt Kean last week named a number of publicly listed companies and warned them to recruit more women to the top jobs.

"The time for talk is over. Women make up half our population and should make up half our boardrooms," the treasurer said in an interview with the Nine Newspapers.

Gender quotas could be used as a key performance indicator and companies should be transparent about board positions, he said.

Of all board members in the ASX All Ordinaries, only 29 per cent were women.

However, women make up just just 37 per cent of board positions in the NSW government within Mr Kean's portfolio, News Corp reported on Tuesday.

State Labor's analysis also found that of the 22 chairs of the boards under Mr Kean's portfolio, 19 were men.

Mr Kean's office told AAP he intends to continue improving female representation on NSW government boards.

"As environment minister I set a 50 per cent gender target for energy and environment boards.

"Now I am responsible for the Treasury portfolio I intend to take steps to boost female participation rates in this important part of government as well," Mr Kean said.

However, Deputy Labor Leader Prue Car accused him of "hypocrisy".

"Last week, he was out lecturing the private sector on what they should be doing on their boards, and it's been exposed that he's not meeting his own targets on his own NSW government boards that he's responsible for as NSW treasurer," she said.

"I think the people of NSW would say to Matt Kean and the Liberals, 'Just do your job', Matt.

"Just concentrate on the NSW economy."

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