West Aussie Andrew Hastie in the running for Opposition Leader after Peter Dutton’s shock election thrashing

Andrew Hastie has vowed to “drive change” within the Liberal party, as he joins a shortlist of leadership contenders in the wake of Peter Dutton’s election wipeout.

The Shadow Defence Minister stopped short of formally putting his hand up for the tough repair job - but didn’t say no - when The West Australian caught up with him in Mandurah on Sunday.

“I’m having discussions with colleagues at the moment, I certainly want to have a voice,” he said.

“I certainly want to be able to drive change within the party itself and what that looks like will be up to my colleagues to determine.

“But I want to keep serving. I love this country, the people of Canning and Australia come first.”

Pressed on whether that was a “yes” on the question of a leadership tilt, he again refused to rule himself in or out.

“I’m not going to talk about the leadership at the moment,” he said.

“Suffice to say we want to have a strong voice for the people of Canning here in the Parliament, and I want to have a strong voice for Western Australia as well.”

The former Special Air Service captain would be the first Opposition Leader based in WA since Kim Beazley and vying to become the first Prime Minister from WA since John Curtin.

No West Australian has ever led the Liberal party in Canberra.

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor is considered the frontrunner to take over the leadership reins, after an election thrashing that has left the party struggling to hold 40 seats.

Mr Taylor is yet to comment on the prospect, but said on social media that it was a “tough night” for Liberals across the country.

“It is clear for the millions of Australians looking to the Liberal party for a brighter future we have much to reflect on,” he said.

Some Liberal MPs are privately backing deputy leader Sussan Ley, as a “capable, collaborative and very strong” alternative who could help the party reclaim “the middle”.

Ms Ley did not rule herself in our out, but said several seats required a final vote count before a leadership vote could be held.

“We reflect on these results with humility,” she said.

Shadow immigration and citizenship Dan Tehan, who has held the seat of Wannon since 2010, is also expected to be in the discussions.

A formal partyroom meeting will be co-ordinated by another West Australian MP, with Melissa Price acting as Chief Opposition Whip.

A dozen Liberals were turfed out of their jobs on Saturday night, including Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister David Coleman and Shadow Housing Minister Michael Sukkar.

We need to really dig deep and think about who we are and who we fight for and who makes up Australia.

Mr Hastie, who defied the national trend with a 3.7 per cent swing his way in Canning, said the soul searching is already underway.

“We’re going to do an extensive post-mortem on this campaign,” he said.

“All of that will be dissected in detail but, for now, we’re just going to focus on the next week ahead and that is working out who’s going to lead the party.”

Mr Hastie said the Liberal party performed better in Canning and regional WA seats, because Labor has “neglected” essential services in the outer-metropolitan, but Liberal candidate Keith Wolahan said the party has a clear problem in urban Australia.

“Which is where most people live, most people live in cities,” he told ABC Insiders.

“We need to turn our mind to that like we have never done before. We need to really dig deep and think about who we are and who we fight for and who makes up Australia.

“Professional people, professional women, younger people who are worried if they’ll ever own their own home again. We also have multi-cultural Australians and people who don’t have a memory of the Howard-Costello era. We need to acknowledge the cities that we live in, not the cities that we used to live in or think we live in.”

Mr Wolahan was facing defeat in the Victorian seat of Menzies, that has only ever been held by the Liberal party.

He said a post-election review must be “serious” and not be put on a shelf.

Mr Dutton said he took “full responsibility” for the election defeat during his concession speech, but senior Liberals were not keen to lay blame - yet.

“He actually held our party together over the last three years, there’s no two ways about that,” WA Senator Michaelia Cash said.

“We’ve got to be honest with ourselves now. We have got to take a long, hard look at what went wrong and accept that and then look at rebuilding.

“Ultimately, though, we can come back. And, in fact, I think we can come back even better and even stronger.”

She backed Mr Hastie as a “future leader” but said her focus was on seats that were still too close to call, not the leadership.

Mr Hastie urged the party to rediscover it’s roots.

“The Liberal Party has traditionally been a party for all Australians,” he said.

“we need to build a big tent and we need to win back the hearts of all Australians, it doesn’t matter where you live.

“I’m someone who believes that we should have a party that fights for families, that fights to get young Australians into homes and a party that delivers better education for our kids, because education is how you rise in this country regardless of where you come from.

“That’s what I’m focused on and that’s what I want our party to focused on.”