Of the four major leadership positions in the Coalition, two are held by women.
Sussan Ley is the deputy leader of the Liberal party and Perin Davey is the deputy leader of the National party.
Between the two parties, there's never been a female leader and, before now, there's only ever been three female deputies — Bridget McKenzie and Fiona Nash for the Nationals, and Julie Bishop for the Liberal party.
Who is Sussan Ley?
Ms Ley was born in Nigeria and grew up in the United Arab Emirates before her family migrated to Australia when she was 13.
She now lives in Albury, NSW, where she's the sitting member for Farrer.
She has a Bachelor of Economics, a Master of Taxation and a Master of Accounting, having started her university education when the first of her three children was one.
Ms Ley also worked as an air traffic controller, a commercial pilot, a shearer's cook and was in a dairy and livestock farming partnership for 17 years.
Before being elected in 2001, she was working for the Australian Tax Office.
Ms Ley has held a handful of Cabinet positions, serving as minister for portfolios including health, sport, and aged care.
Her most recent role was minister for the environment.
According to her profile on her website, she's still a keen flyer, likes cycling and enjoys "relaxing back with a ripping yarn, usually a true crime thriller".
In a much-cited interview with the Australian in 2015, Ms Ley said she added an extra S to her name as a young woman after getting into numerology.
"If you added an 's' I'd have an incredibly exciting, interesting life and nothing would ever be boring," she told the newspaper.
Who is Perin Davey?
Senator Davey grew up in Canberra, but now lives near Deniliquin, in south-west NSW.
She got a graduate certificate in public relations from the University of Southern Queensland and worked as a cadet journalist for the Mudgee Guardian in the early 90s while serving as an Army reservist.
According to her profile on the Nationals website, she also ran her own safari trail hospitality company in Botswana.
Before being elected to the Senate in 2019, she had a string of consultant and advisor roles throughout her career, including as a water policy adviser for Murray Irrigation Limited.
She became the Nationals Whip in the Senate later in 2019.
In her opening speech to Parliament, she spoke about her family life on the farm with her two daughters and her husband, who she met at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
What's Bridget McKenzie's role?
Senator McKenzie used to be deputy of the National party, but stepped down from that role and quit Cabinet in 2020 after the so-called sports rorts affair.
However, she was promoted back into Cabinet during a reshuffle last year.
Now she's the Senate leader for the Nationals.
Matt Canavan is her deputy.
It's not yet clear who will be leading the Liberal party in the Senate.
Why two female deputies?
In a nutshell: the obvious candidates for leader were men, but both parties wanted to connect with female voters.
Dubbed as "the last man standing", senior Liberal Peter Dutton ran unopposed to become the leader.
That's because, with former prime minister Scott Morrison stepping down, treasurer Josh Frydenberg losing his seat and former health minister Greg Hunt retiring, he really was the only key figure left.
With a man in the top job, there was a strong feeling in Liberal ranks that the deputy should be a woman in the wake of the election.
"The reality is, that the [voters] we lost in droves were predominantly women, educated women," former home affairs minister Karen Andrews said.
"They were unhappy with the Liberal Party and they chose to take their vote elsewhere."
Ms Andrews may have run for deputy, however, she said it was "untenable" to have both leader and deputy come from the same state.
Bridget Archer, another well-known female Liberal figure, indicated she was open to "potentially" running for the deputy leadership role.
It was a similar story for the Nationals.
Besides Senator McKenzie, all the key figures — former leader Barnaby Joyce, former leader Michael McCormack, former deputy David Littleproud and leadership hopeful Darren Chester — were men.
Despite acknowledging he was unlikely to win the leadership contest, Mr Chester said it was clear the Nationals needed to connect better with younger and female voters.
Will this bring female voters back to the Coalition?
They sure hope so.
After being named deputy, Ms Ley said her party's new leadership was determined to win the trust of women.
"I think that women didn't hear much of what we were saying. They didn't believe, perhaps, that we were focusing on them and their lives," she said.
"But, again, many women actually did support us and I've heard from many of those women.
"I'm not stepping back from the fact that many women didn't support us and I want to have honest conversations and I don't want to gloss over anything and I want to hear directly from women."
