Women will make up at least half of all future appointments to paid Victorian government board and court positions, the state Labor party has announced.

Female representation on government boards in Victoria has dropped from 40% to 35.6% in the past four years.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said women’s perspectives were needed on more Victorian boards.

“When it comes to women on major government boards, the federal government performs better than Victoria,” he told the Victorian Labor party state conference on Saturday.

Women make up 80% of the workforce in the health and social care industry, but have fewer than 25% of the board positions on Melbourne Health.

“What I’ve announced today will mean that by the end of 2018, no director of an ASX 200 company will be able to look me in the eye and tell me there aren’t enough women in our state who are qualified to join them,” Andrews said.

Ministers will be responsible for ensuring all appointments meet the new requirements, which will apply to all paid government boards and the supreme, county and magistrates courts.

Andrews said there had been an aspirational target set up in 2009 to get more women on boards, but it had not been enforced.

The opposition leader, Matthew Guy, said the announcement had the opposition’s support.



“I think it’s good policy, and I think it’s probably overdue,” he said on Saturday. “I think it should also be looked at for the non-paying boards as well.”

The prime minister, Tony Abbott, was also in Victoria, addressing the Liberal party’s state council.



He told about 1,000 of the party faithful that losing the Victorian election hurt the Liberals but the party was still strong.

“But when you look at the great federal members of parliament we’ve got down here, when you look at the great state members of parliament we’ve got here, our party is in good shape here in Victoria,” he said.



“I make this prediction: the longer the Labor government lasts, the better the Victorian Liberal government will look.”



Abbott paid tribute to Malcolm Fraser after attending the former prime minister’s funeral on Friday.



“Malcolm Fraser was a giant of our history. He was a great Australian, he was a great Liberal, he was one of us,” he said. “We embrace him forever.”



The election review committee chairman, David Kemp, will present his interim report into last year’s state election loss on Saturday afternoon, and the opposition leader, Matthew Guy, will speak on Sunday.