Former West Australian infrastructure minister Alannah MacTiernan will stand for the federal seat of Perth at the upcoming federal election.

Ms MacTiernan today announced her nomination as the ALP candidate, and says she's confident she can hold the seat being vacated by Defence Minister Stephen Smith after 20 years in office.

The Liberals are already heavily campaigning in the seat and many in Labor believe a high profile candidate is needed to keep the seat.

Lawyer Matthew Keogh was the only candidate to nominate for pre-selection yesterday, but has now withdrawn his nomination.

Ms MacTiernan is the current mayor of the City of Vincent.

She says with the ALP leadership issue resolved, she believes Labor can win another term in office.

Ms MacTiernan says she wants to focus on big issues like climate change, education, urban development and getting a fairer share of commonwealth funds for WA.

"I'm really excited that we've now got a political contest that's about ideas. That is about what is our direction we want our society to go in."

Ms MacTiernan unsuccessfully contested the Federal seat of Canning in 2010, losing to the Liberals' Don Randall.

The WA Premier Colin Barnett says Ms MacTiernan is a strong candidate.

"Clearly she'd be a strong candidate, but this coming Federal election is going to be closer than people thought and I think every seat is going to be contested," he said.

"And certainly the three seats that Labor hold in WA, the Liberal party is going to be going after those very strongly."