National leader Christopher Luxon is "a big fan" of gender parity in Cabinet and says more diversity within his own party is "something to aspire to".
Appearing on AM on Wednesday, Luxon told host Melissa Chan-Green it was "great" women now make up 50 percent of seats in a New Zealand Cabinet for the first time.
The proportion of women in Cabinet officially increased to half on Tuesday after the promotion of Northland MP Willow-Jean Prime, following the sacking of Napier's Stuart Nash.
"I think that's a really good thing but… it doesn't still, fundamentally, change the direction of this Government which, as a Cabinet, can't get things done," Luxon said. "I think it's something certainly to aspire to. I'm a big fan of… diversity and making sure we have a fully representative Caucus.
"We've got work to do on that in the National Party, as we've talked about before."
With women only making up about a third of the National Party's Caucus, Luxon put that down to getting "wiped out" at the 2020 election - which Labour won in a landslide.
National had a "very poor performance and lost a lot of our diversity", he said.
"I've been building that back and as we go to 2023, [National president] Sylvia Wood and myself are very conscious of wanting to make sure we are a 'national' National Party that represents all communities across New Zealand."
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