A 6000-strong backlog of nominations for honours has led to a stark gender disparity in the Australia Day awards.
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Insiders say the previous governor-general, David Hurley, and the Council of the Order of Australia embarked on achieving an even gender split before the end of Hurley's tenure.
In order to achieve that, nominations were not considered in the order in which they were received.
The independent review of the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General, led by Dr Vivienne Thom and released last year, recommended that the Office should revert to the published policy of assessing Order of Australia nominations in strict order of date of receipt unless there are exceptional circumstances including age or health.
The federal government has responded to the review by announcing an extra $6 million for the Office over two years, although not all that additional funding will go to the Australian Honours and Awards Secretariat at Government House.
The Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Patrick Gorman said yesterday: "The Government acknowledges that this gender imbalance is unacceptable. It results from the combination of women being underrepresented in nominations, and a years-long backlog in processing nominations."
Carol Kiernan, co-founder of Honour A Woman, the advocacy group leading the gender parity campaign in the Australian honours system, says funding will not be enough to make change.
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HAW is calling for an overhaul of the system including systematic collection of data analysing all aspects of diversity.
The Council of the Order of Australia issued a statement which acknowledged that the gender balance of this year's honours list is a cause for concern.
"The Council hopes [it is also] a prompt for community action," the statement said.
The Thom review also recommended that the Office should recruit approximately 18 additional staff for a period of two years led by a senior executive service officer to handle the backlog of nominations for the Order of Australia.
The gender split in nominations over the last 12 months has been about two-thirds men and one-third women.
Minister Gorman said that the government has invested in campaigns to increase the nomination of women.
"I call on all Australians to consider nominating a woman for Australian Honours," he said.
