With Ms Banks moving to the crossbench, just 12 of the 74 Coalition lower house politicians are women. Government MPs say their numbers are impossible to defend.
Photo shows One woman, wearing a red jacket, is visible amongst her male Liberal colleagues.
Senior women from within the Liberal Party are speaking out about the lack of representation in the Federal Parliament and how to fix it.
The startling underrepresentation of women in the federal party is acknowledged by the right and the left as being abysmal. But still there is no evidence that those numbers will improve.
The party has now lost a woman that Ms Bishop describes as a "strong, sensible centre female politician in our party".
The resignation from the government benches not only plunges the Morrison Government further into minority, it puts a giant spotlight onto the gender issues inside the party. The fact that Ms Banks now sits among a group of independent female MPs makes that imagery even more potent.
