Governor-General David Hurley said that the Order of Australia honours have a historical bias against women while they have not included enough Indigenous or recipients of migrant background to its higher ranks.

Mr Hurley agreed that criticisms professing the honours had been mostly given to men were “certainly valid” in an interview to both the Herald and The Age.

“The data supports it. You can’t walk away from that, I don’t like that, I don’t think it’s appropriate, I don’t think it’s right and I want to change it,” he said.

The honours system has been found to favour the rich and powerful, who happen to predominantly be white and male for at least the last 40 years.

According to both the Herald and The Age, of all Order of Australia recipients between 1975 and 2016, 70 per cent were male, rich and powerful.

Women have also tended to be given the lower-level honours.

“I have written to 59 peak bodies in Australia over the last three or four months, and presented them with 20 years of data of their male and female nominations [for OAs],” the Governor-General said.

“To some of them I have said quite candidly, ‘I don’t think you’re doing well enough.’ ”

Asked if Indigenous Australians had been well represented in the Order of Australia, the Governor-General said: “On the face of it, no, they haven’t been. They are under-represented. It is not easy. I have had conversations with Indigenous leaders. Some are of the view that this is not a system for them.”

Meanwhile, it appears that 130 directors of boards of ASX 300 companies are members of the Order of Australia, and the suburbs in which AC and AO members are most likely to live are Toorak in Melbourne and Mosman in Sydney, followed by Melbourne’s South Yarra and Kew, and Sydney’s exclusive Vaucluse.

Interestingly, candidates from the “Multicultural” or “Disabled” fields have been made members of the AC, but the “Parliament and Politics” category has 42 ACs, while “Business and Commerce” leaders have 48 of them.

“The Order of Australia is the highest form of recognition for Australians,” Mr Hurley said.

“It is a recognition of significant contribution to the life of Australia at the community, national and global levels. One of the big problems we suffer from is awareness of the system itself. I am aware of the criticisms that have been raised. There are considered criticisms of the system that are valid and need to be addressed.”

At the same time, information leaked having controversial tennis champion Margaret Court be upgraded to the highest honour possible on Australia Day – a Companion in the Order of Australia (AC).

Court who was named an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) back in 2007 has received a lot of backlash when it comes to her views on homosexuality, same-sex marriage and transgender people.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to comment on the honour, saying the Order of Australia was a “completely independent process” adding that “I have no official knowledge of those things”.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on the other hand said that he was “sick of talking about that person every summer. I do not support that. I do not believe that she has views that accord with the vast majority of people across our nation, that see people particularly from the LGBTIQ community as equal and deserving of dignity, respect and safety,” he said.

“But I don’t give out those gongs … you might want to speak to them about why they think those views, which are disgraceful, hurtful and cost lives, should be honoured.”