With two of Tony Abbott's more recognisable lady warriors having been sidelined from active service, all of a sudden his ministry looks very blokey indeed, writes Annabel Crabb.

It is 26 years since Tony Abbott left the seminary, but in many ways he takes it wherever he goes.

How else to explain the battle between spirit and flesh upon which the new PM stubbornly embarks every day before dawn, as his constituents snooze unawares?

Faced with the need to abandon the Lodge for serially-delayed repairs, he swiftly chose instead the monastic accommodation at the Australian Federal Police cadet headquarters.

And today, Mr Abbott has announced his new Cabinet: Nineteen blokes and a Bishop. Perfect.

To be fair, there are differences: Seminaries don't have women because of holy tradition. The first Abbott Cabinet is short on X-chromosomes because that's just how it panned out.

("That's just how it panned out" is the traditionalists' defence of organisations that proudly appoint "only on merit" and find, time after time, that an astonishingly high proportion of the really excellent people also have willies.)

Mr Abbott's gender balance problem has been exacerbated by a couple of other factors; two of his more recognisable lady warriors have been sidelined from active service.

Sophie Mirabella is urgently required in her Victorian seat of Indi to track down and tear limb from limb whichever bastard discovered and handed in that box of 1,000 votes for her independent challenger Cathy McGowan. And Bronwyn Bishop is heading for a long session with her furrier; a robe must swiftly be developed gorgeous enough to capture, with adequate pomp, the glory of her imminent ascension to the speakership.

But that's what happens when you've only got a few ladies to play with; lose a couple, and all of a sudden things look very blokey indeed.

In recent days, a concerted attempt has been made to flush out a few female faces for the outer ministry and parliamentary secretaryships.

Mr Abbott's final line-up includes Fiona Nash and Michaelia Cash as assistant ministers for health and immigration respectively; Sussan Ley and Marise Payne assisting in education and human services; and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells as parliamentary secretary to social services minister Kevin Andrews.

"I'm obviously disappointed that there aren't more women in Cabinet," said Mr Abbott, announcing the appointments this afternoon. (Just wait till he gets hold of the guy who drew up the list.)

"There are very strong and capable women knocking on the door of the Cabinet."

These very strong and capable women will continue to knock strongly, capably, at the door until circumstances permit their entry, one may assume.

During the campaign, Mr Abbott promised to form a "no surprises" government, and this first ministry pretty much delivers on that front. There are a couple of points of interest - the trade portfolio leaving the National Party and going to Andrew Robb, for instance, who loses Finance to the WA Senator Mathias Cormann, who is indisputably the happiest chap in the party room at this precise moment. Indigenous Affairs is now a sole portfolio, in the Cabinet, held by NT Country Liberal Senator Nigel "I Once Shot A Mud Crab Off My Finger" Scullion, surely the second happiest.

Portfolio titles have been edited severely; there are none of the bronto-portfolios that proliferated like bougainvillea during the Rudd/Gillard years. Eric Abetz is Minister for Employment. Christopher Pyne is Minister for Education. Kevin Andrews is Minister for Social Services. Ian Macfarlane is Minister for Industry, and so on.

There will be much interim confusion about where various particular sectors - once named on lengthier ministerial business cards, now not mentioned explicitly at all - will fit in this new slimline list.

But those concerned specifically with science, aged care, disabilities and so on need not worry, according to Mr Abbott; just because you're not mentioned doesn't mean you're not catered for. Science will go with Industry, for instance, and aged care and disabilities with Social Services, he said.

The new team will take up their responsibilities tomorrow, at Yarralumla. And the fabled Day One for the Abbott Government is to be Wednesday.

Two nights and one day of fasting and prayer to go.

Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer. View her full profile here.