Labor must do a better job of engaging with "pragmatic" West Australian voters if it's to revive its fortunes in the state, federal MP Josh Wilson says.
Labor's hopes of winning the federal election faded when it failed to snatch any of the five lower house Liberal seats it targeted in WA.
The dire performance came just two years after Mark McGowan led WA Labor to a landslide state election win, reducing the Liberals to just 13 of 59 lower house seats.
Labor's federal primary vote slumped below 30 per cent in WA, where then-leader Bill Shorten's attacks on the "top end of town" failed to resonate given the high number of above-average income earners in the resources industry.
Mr Wilson, the member for Fremantle, says federal Labor failed to make a compelling case to WA voters concerned about their economic security.
"We've got to do a better job of that," he told AAP.
"The reality is that in 2017, we saw the election of a state Labor government because it made a compelling argument it was best-placed to lead this state into the future, around investment in things like Metronet, focus on new jobs, engagement with our region, lifting tourism - a series of things they've done quite successfully.
"The people of Western Australia are pragmatic and sensible, and if you work hard and you make a compelling argument, they will respond to that."
He added that the party had probably spread itself too thin in WA during the election campaign.
"We did run strong campaigns around really good candidates in a number of marginal seats and on reflection, we might have been better to concentrate in fewer seats - maybe two or three rather than five marginal seats," he said.
Mr Wilson said it was incumbent on federal WA MPs to advocate strongly for constituents, noting he'd campaigned for more defence industry work and improvements to the state's "bottom of the pile" NBN performance.
He said the coalition government had "done nothing" to address WA's weak wage growth and labour market.
Australian Associated Press
