Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle has criticised the Victorian Liberal Party's performance at the state election and "loonies" on the party's political right.

Councillor Doyle, who led the Victorian Liberal Party from 2002 to 2006, said his party is "out of step" with the Victorian people.

"If my party doesn't buy the world's biggest mirror and then have a good hard long look at itself, it will consign itself to opposition for another 10 years," he told 774 ABC Melbourne's Jon Faine.

He disagreed with calls from the Institute of Public Affairs' (IPA) John Roskam for the party to become more conservative in order to differentiate itself from Labor.

"I don't think the answer for my party is to lurch to the right; I think that'd be a disaster," said councillor Doyle.

"Some of those loonies out on the right of the party have brought us into terrible disrepute around reviving the abortion debate and all of these sort of things which are just ideas from the 1960s."

He said Victoria had always been a centre-left state and the Liberals needed to stop campaigning "like it's the 1990s".

"Get with the idea that people are concerned about the environment and sustainability, stop the old Liberal playbook [that] the CFMEU are the devil incarnate," said councillor Doyle.

"You've just got to understand the nature of this state and this city."

Partisan politics alienating voters, says Lord Mayor

Councillor Doyle said the state Liberals need to learn to "set a vision for the state [and] talk about why you want to do it".

"We lost this election three and a half years ago when we won government and didn't do anything with it," he said.

He welcomed Premier Daniel Andrews' appointment of former Melbourne Lord Mayor Richard Wynne as planning minister.

The Lord Mayor said he will work with the new government "for the good of the city".

"One of the reasons I was not sorry to leave the Victorian parliament in 2006 is I hope I have left partisan politics a long way behind," he said.

"I think it's toxic, I think people are sick of it and I think that's why you are seeing the rise of micro-parties and other minor parties."