Education Minister Christopher Pyne says the Liberal Party needs to do more to encourage young mums into federal parliament.

Mr Pyne, who is the father of four children, said the Labor Party had done a better job than the Liberals at attracting mothers to politics.

“It’s something in the Liberal Party that we need to put a real effort into,” he told ABC TV on Monday night.

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Liberal MP Kelly O’Dwyer recently gave birth to her first child and Mr Pyne said that was a rarity on his side of politics when it should be “commonplace”.

The ALP National Conference at the weekend endorsed a policy to ensure women hold 50 per cent of positions at all levels of the party by 2025.

In response to that, Mr Pyne said he did not believe in quotas or targets, but wanted to see more women in parliament – and not just those whose children had left home.

He hailed Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin as an example of someone encouraging other women to be part of the power structure.

Mr Pyne had recently written a book called A Letter to My Children, which explains why he chose a life in politics.

– with AAP