Gender quotas are the key to addressing pay inequality in Queensland, the state's Minister for Women Shannon Fentiman says.

When asked by the ABC about whether the Labor Government should consider "positive discrimination" legislation to close the gender pay gap, Ms Fentiman answered it was "something we've got to have a conversation about".

Ms Fentiman said Germany last week introduced legislation to increase the number of women on boards.

"We've got to do a better job across government and in industry and in the community sector, and I want to work with business and the community that we've got more women in leadership positions," she said.

Ms Fentiman said providing affordable childcare was the first step in increasing the number of women in the workplace.

"We've got to do a better job of mentoring these women into these leadership positions and a lot of it comes back to family-friendly workplaces," she said.

"A lot of the women I talk to need affordable child care to actually go to work every day and actually progress in their career.

"So there's a whole range of issues we need to look at. I think we do need to be talking about quotas for boards, and continuing to support women in these positions."

Quotas 'needed to guide and create opportunities'

Monica Bradley, a company director and adviser who has held senior roles around the world, said she backed the idea of quotas to get more women into leadership roles.

"When I came back from overseas three years ago, I was against quotas," she said on 612 ABC Brisbane.

"I assumed that women in the right places - that part of it was our fault as women - that we actually hadn't presented ourselves, we don't pitch up.

"Now three years later, being back in Australia after having worked in New York and the Middle East, I would actually advocate that we do need quotas now.

"But we need quotas more to guide and create opportunities so the women that now are educated can come in."

Ms Bradley said quotas would help to improve diversity in workplaces, but reward systems for companies were more effective.

She said this was illustrated in the Women on Boards' "traffic light" index in 2013.

"The companies that got a red light saying that they weren't - in terms of diversity - with the current practices, are quick smart to put policies in place to change it," she said.

Old legacy traditions 'holding women back'

Ms Bradley said Australia was lagging behind other places in the world.

"Our society is on the verge of changing from the industrial age. Economic capital is really important," she said.

"The world is now moving to the information age or technology age, and we have a lot of opportunities.

"We've got a lot old legacy traditions and laws of bureaucracy that are holding us back.

"If we leave it as it is ... we will continue to be ruled in those influential areas of company influences - whether they be boards or executive positions - by people who are in a small representation of our wider society."

She said through her mentoring work, she saw there was more opportunities for women in self-employment and entrepreneurship, but not necessarily for women stepping forward in the corporate sector.

"The working women I work with are actually the 'sandwich generation'. We're the generation that have elder care responsibilities and childcare responsibilities, and now, because we're largely educated, we're in the workforce as well," she said.

"As a consequence, probably not directly, we're seeing increased rates of mental illness, stress-related illnesses, relationship breakdowns.

"It's no surprise really if we look at the way the structure of the world going into this part of the industrial age that we have these issues."