After a bruising defeat, Labor, Liberals look to lessons from One Nation

The Labor and Liberal parties are beginning to lick their wounds after suffering a bruising defeat in a by-election in Perth's south as One Nation continues celebrating the result as a major shift in the political landscape.

WA Premier Roger Cook promised Labor would listen to the result, taking it as "a reminder that Western Australians are doing it tough".

"It's a reminder of how important it is we meet Western Australians where they are and have the conversations to ensure that our community values are reflected in everything that we do," Mr Cook told reporters.

One Nation's Luke Herdegen has claimed the Secret Harbour by-election with a massive swing against Labor in an area it has held for decades. 

The poll was forced by the retirement of the seat's long-serving MP, Paul Papalia, to care for a sick family member. 

The campaign was fought on a range of issues, spanning how often red bins are collected through to the popularity of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and One Nation's national leader Pauline Hanson.

Lessons should be learnt

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek said while her party would seek to learn lessons from the upset, so too should the Liberals.

"This is a state election run on state issues," Ms Plibersek told Insiders.

"However, it is important that all of us have a good look at the results here and think about what more we need to do."

Outgoing federal Liberal MP, Jono Duniam, said the result was "not a good outcome for my party, and it's one that we need to look hard at and rectify".

The Tasmanian Senator said he shared the feelings of his colleague Andrew Hastie, who earlier in the week criticised their state leader, Basil Zempilas, for saying a Labor loss would be a win for his party, regardless of the actual winner. 

"We shouldn't be talking about being open minded to work with particular other parties or anything like that," Mr Duniam told News 24, formerly known as Sky News.

"We should be asking people to vote for us.

"So my message to colleagues across the country who want to go down that pathway, well no, let's fight for what we have lost. Let's win back those votes we've lost in previous elections."

Defeat conceded

Labor's candidate, Georgia Tree, formally conceded defeat on Sunday morning, issuing a statement saying it had been an "honour to fight for my community" and highlighting promises made by the party during the campaign.

"Make no mistake — all of this will be delivered by the Cook Labor government because of WA Labor and because of our campaign and our fight for Secret Harbour," she wrote.

"Congratulations to Luke Herdegen. It is a great honour to represent your community in Parliament and it is a massive responsibility."

Mr Herdegen said the result was a loss for Labor but not for Ms Tree personally and urged "anyone who's a supporter of me, show Georgia some love".

"This is One Nation heartland now," he said, pointing to nearby seats like Roger Cook's electorate of Kwinana now being under threat.

"People have had enough. They definitely felt neglected in the outer-southern suburbs.

"They certainly sent a message to Canberra as well and Anthony Albanese that they're unhappy."

The gym owner — who said he is in the process of selling those businesses — said he had already spoken to his federal leader last night.

"She was really excited and understands it sends a big message," he said.

State One Nation leader Rod Caddies said the result should not be seen as a one-off.

"The truth is we know they threw everything at this but the kitchen sink, the people of Secret Harbour had the full undivided attention of this government and they still failed," Mr Caddies said.

"They won't be able to duplicate this in a general election."

The first issue to tackle, Mr Herdegen said, was returning weekly bin collections to the area, after they were cut back to fortnightly with the rollout of FOGO bins.