Four times Sharman Stone championed the rights of women and girls

In a shrewd move on the eve of a Donald Trump presidency, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has anointed Dr Sharman Stone as Australia's new Ambassador for Women and Girls.

Dr Stone, who served as the federal member for the regional Victorian seat of Murray for 20 years, has a long history of agitating within the Liberal Party for female rights.

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Throughout the 1990s Dr Stone was a thorn in John Howard's side as minister for workforce participation and parliamentary secretary for finance, before becoming a member of the Coalition's shadow ministry who consistently pushed for more female representation in Parliament right up until the Abbott era. 

Probably most famously remembered for calling out former prime minister Tony Abbott and treasurer Joe Hockey for "lying" about worker conditions at the SPC factory in her electorate, as well as her controversial recommendation that potential immigrants to Australia should sit English competency tests, Dr Stone was also vocal on controversial policy areas pertaining to the rights of women.

These four moments in particular stand out:

She called for a quota system to be introduced to the Liberal Party.

And was a lone ranger when she pushed the topic, something she hoped would ensure more women were preselected to represent the Coalition.

She also publicly slammed Tony Abbott's chief of staff, Peta Credlin, and Mr Abbott for the lack of female MPs in government after she was overlooked for a frontbench role in his cabinet in 2013.

"Peta was the gatekeeper for Tony Abbott," Dr Stone said last year.

"She was his most influential and indispensable rock, and during that time we only had two women in cabinet and they sure as hell didn't have the finance portfolios."

She helped overturn the ban on RU-486.

Despite being told by then health minister Tony Abbott (who supported the ban on the abortion pill) to "take a cold shower" when she and other critics threatened to cross the floor and vote against her party during the vote on the RU-486 Private Members Bill in 2006, Dr Stone campaigned loudly to have the 10-year ban lifted.

She cited the plight of women in her electorate and other regional and remote areas that didn't have easy access to surgical abortions.

"If we didn't have a conscience vote then I'd have to think very seriously about [crossing the floor] because I do represent a regional electorate and I feel very concerned about the number of women and girls who have to go to capital cities now [for abortions]," she told the ABC in 2005. 

She petitioned for a generous paid-parental leave scheme.

Dr Stone was a champion of Abbott's doomed PPL scheme back in 2014, but lashed out at her male colleagues who criticised changes that would have seen women paid their full replacement wage for 26 weeks. She criticised the likes of George Christensen, calling them "out of touch" with the challenges women face when juggling work and child-rearing. 

She was instrumental in ensuring foreign aid was spent on family planning services.

Last year she tabled a petitioned signed by close to 10,000 people calling on the government to ensure that cuts to aid programs in developing countries didn't impact on services for women and children.

"In Australia, we have a focus on women and girls in our foreign aid program. I am so proud that now, when funds – which are, of course, taxpayer funds – are directed to aid projects, some 80 per cent of those projects must reflect the needs of women and children, particularly women and girls," she said during Question Time. 

Dr Stone retired from the House of Representatives this year after deciding not to contest the July federal election, despite achieving a 1.3 per cent swing towards her in the 2013 campaign. She will start her new role – a position originally created in 2011 by then prime minister Julia Gillard – in January, replacing former Democrats leader Natasha Stott Despoja, who has been in the role since 2013.

Ms Stott Despoja travelled extensively with the Foreign Minister throughout her term, mainly to the Indo-Pacific region encouraging women to take up paid work.

She most recently attended the Women Deliver event in Copenhagen – the largest women's health and rights global conference held in more than a decade. She joined Australian-born Crown Princess Mary of Denmark and urged more countries to appoint advocates for women's issues. So far only six countries, including Australia, the US and Sweden, have representatives for gender equality.

Dr Stone's appointment to the role that sits in Ms Bishop's portfolio is considered a positive one, if not strategically subversive. Hopefully she will take her legacy of being a strong campaigner for women's rights to the world stage and continue to champion views that fly in the face of the US President-elect's stance on issues such as reproductive health.