WA's McGowan takes blame for loss

West Australian Labor leader Mark McGowan refuses to link his election defeat to the federal party. Source: AAP

WEST Australian Labor leader Mark McGowan refuses to link his election defeat to the federal party yet hopes his diminishing pool of parliamentary colleagues will give him another shot.

"I take responsibility for the outcome and I'm not going to blame anyone else," Mr McGowan said.

He said Saturday had been a brutal night for state Labor, which would spend coming days reflecting on its caning at the polls, but he couldn't yet pinpoint what had gone wrong.

It was always difficult to defeat a first-term government, he said, and wouldn't be drawn on the many comments from both sides of politics - including defence minister Stephen Smith - that the party's federal woes had dented WA Labor's chances.

"I'm not going to blame any other level of government," Mr McGowan said.

"I know over the coming week, people will try to make me do it.

"I'm the leader - I said it was a state campaign, I was repetitive in saying that."

When pressed on the role the federal party may have played, he said: "I'm not going to get into all of those issues today".

Prime minister Julia Gillard issued a brief, terse statement congratulating Mr Barnett and saying she acknowledged Mr McGowan's hard-fought campaign.

After licking its wounds, WA Labor will hold a caucus meeting later this week, when Mr McGowan will stand for the leadership again.

But he said it was up to his colleagues.

"I've tried to do the best I can and make sure that we're a positive alternative," he said.

"I hope my colleagues agree with me."

His second in charge, opposition treasury spokesman Ben Wyatt, said Mr McGowan was the right man to rebuild the party in the state.

Mr Wyatt said he hoped and expected the former Navy lieutenant and lawyer - who only took over from Eric Ripper just over a year ago - would stay on as leader and contest the 2017 election.

Meanwhile, Mr McGowan said the interim was an opportunity for rebuilding and he hoped the party would win more than 20 seats when counting was finalised.

"If we obtain that, that makes us into a significant opposition," he said.

He said he was very sad about his colleagues who lost, but no-one could deny the party had run a good campaign.

"I'm proud of the campaign we ran, it was hard work, but we went out there with so many policies and so many ideas," he said.

Mr McGowan was surprisingly non-committal as to whether WA Labor's main election promise, the Metronet rail network, would remain part of its policy in its current form.

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