Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has expressed surprise that "one of the most thoughtful and down-to-earth" people she's met is the daughter of the US president.
Ms Bishop revealed on Wednesday she wondered how Donald was Ivanka's father after the younger Trump's enthusiastic response about political mentoring during a discussion in New York.
Australia's most senior female federal politician used women's affairs luncheon to discuss various gender issues, including the Trump incident and her time as the lone female in Tony Abbott's first cabinet.
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Ms Bishop says when she met Ivanka during a recent trip to the United Nations in New York the two discussed a mentoring program for female leaders in Pacific Island nations.
The program aims to boost female representation in the region's parliaments, where fewer than 10 per cent of representatives are women.
Three nations have no female members in their lower houses, according to advocacy group Pacific Women in Politics.
"When I told Ivanka Trump about that, she embraced it immediately, said how could her foundation get involved, she could host something at the White House," Ms Bishop said.
"(She was) very conscious that the White House could really galvanise action.
"And I thought, 'That president produced that daughter - interesting.'"
Ms Bishop said Ivanka was "one of the most delightful, thoughtful, measured, outward-looking, down-to-earth people" she had met.
The foreign minister also reflected on the "extraordinary outcome" of being the lone woman in the first Abbott cabinet.
"It was pretty lonely - I would be sitting in cabinet with 19 men and me," she said.
She says "time and time again" she would put an idea, get no response and then watch a colleague parrot her idea moments later.
"The others would say 'brilliant, what a genius idea'," Ms Bishop said.
That led her to make a deal with female colleagues who later joined cabinet that no matter the topic, any woman's idea would be vocally supported.
