That person was given the task of finding a replacement for Amanda McIntyre, the head of the Office for Women, who lasted just one year.

Turns out that persuading high achievers to apply for a job in the public service, take a pay cut and then land in a place where it's nigh impossible to make cultural change isn't as attractive as it might appear at first glance.

Applications closed last Sunday and we can only hope this one will stick around at least to make trouble, if not to make change.

It's a gloomy prospect for anyone really. In 2014, the government swore that it would adopt a national strategy for women and improve women's participation in the workforce. Yet here we are in 2017 and seriously, what's happening is enough to make a grown woman cry and me to have some sympathy for Senator Michaelia Cash, the Minister for Women.

Here's the deal. In 2014, the Coalition government made a commitment to reduce the workforce participation gender gap. – and the promise was to reduce it by 25 per cent by 2025. Cash, whose frustration with her colleagues is palpable around this issue, say insiders, released the strategy to achieve that target just a month ago.

Cash has made a promise to release an updated implementation plan each year so that the government can be measured against its promises. So we have targets in this document of the government's but no one to hold any part of the government accountable for those targets.

Marie Coleman, chair of the social policy committee of the National Foundation for Australian Women, says the implementation plan has only one hope for success.

"There is more to monitor than movements in the rate at which women participate in the workforce ... it would be considerably improved if the strategy had targets with teeth across each department to identify the gendered impacts of initiatives."

But persuading government departments to find ways to punish themselves is sadly even harder than it looks.

Robyn Nolan is president of the National Council of Women in WA and she's also the former federal president of the Liberal Women's Committee and of the Liberal Women's Council in WA. Nolan is a reasonably circumspect person and diplomatic as is humanly possible – as you would have to be to get as far as she has in the Liberal Party – but she has some strong opinions on this and she's happy to share them.

"My view is that Senator Cash is doing a great job as Minister for Women however the issue of gender equality will only move forward when men and women work together - we have a long way to go to have all men on board."

The Labor Party has more momentum on women's issues and that's a function of the far greater number of women involved and there would be no Labor bloke alive who'd risk alienating them. But the number of influential women in the Liberals is comparatively minuscule, which makes it hard for any change to stick.

So what could be added to any strategy to improve women's participation in the workforce? And to make it worth women's while to work.

Coleman has a few excellent ideas – do away with the ridiculous notion that superannuation can only be paid to those earning more than $450 a week from one employer, as if poorly paid women don't need super. Women with multiple jobs below the cut off also need to have that sorted pronto.

If the government seriously wants to move women away from being totally dependent on the age pension, then it needs to change the rules. As soon as you get paid, you should get super. And while we are at it, legislate for super on paid parental leave. Women can no longer afford to assume that everything in old age will be taken care of. Stop the super gaps.

If you want to really know what's going on for women, then make sure all your blokey bloke departments have gendered stats for everything. That's one way you will avoid making another massive mistake such as the one in this year's budget – no one bothered to work out the effect of changes to effective tax rates and that's how we ended up with women being screwed again.

Put in place rules that include flexibility at work, across a whole range of areas. Women are forced into casual work and then excluded from a range of benefits that make it possible for them to continue their jobs. Provide a decent income for women who work in the sectors which underpin society: health, welfare, education, caring.

And Rae Cooper wants something else added for everyone who employs women. Cooper, associate dean in the University of Sydney Business School, says we must address flexibility. She says there's a real culture problem where flexibility and good jobs are seen as the antithesis of each other. There are particular life points where it's difficult to maintain career attachment to a good job at an appropriate skill level. The flexibility is just not there.

"We need to normalise flexibility instead of it being seen as a career trap and prove that flexibility and good jobs are not mutually exclusive," she says.

"But the government is not the only stake holder which can make a difference, it's business and unions too."

But government is the policy driver and that's why Michaelia Cash has to shift the culture.

Jenna Price is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney and a Fairfax Media columnist.

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