On the day Mike Nahan was appointed as the new leader of the WA Liberals he promised his party had learned from its brutal election loss and would act quickly to become an effective opposition.

But two months later it still is not clear what has actually changed, aside from the face of the leader and the size of the much-diminished partyroom.

Policies cited by many as big factors in the Barnett government's defeat — most notably the Perth Freight Link — continue to be backed by the party's new leadership, while little has been put forward in the way of new ideas.

The Perth Freight Link project sparked a sustained series of protests right up until the state poll, but rather than ditching the contentious project, Dr Nahan decided to double down — even repeatedly urging the McGowan Government to break its key election promise to abandon the project.

Dr Nahan has also continued to push for the sale of Western Power and argue against key projects Labor took to the election, including aspects of its Metronet public transport system.

Labor has accused the Liberals of living in denial and refusing to accept the election result.

"Regardless of what the Liberal Party may want to do, it does not get to have a simulated reality," Treasurer Ben Wyatt told State Parliament last week.

"It does not get to treat all this as some sort of Matrix-style 'I'll swallow the blue pill and wake up in the bed when everything's all okay'."

Barnett yet to respond to internal attack

Something else which has surprised both political watchers and some Liberal MPs is the continued presence of former leader Colin Barnett.

Mr Barnett told journalists to leave him alone. ( ABC News: Andrew O'Connor )

Several of his colleagues conceded in the wake of the election that Mr Barnett was not the best person to lead the party to the poll.

Mr Barnett offered little in the way of a response to that criticism, or for the party's disastrous showing at the poll, which saw the Liberals reduced to just 13 seats in the 59-member Lower House.

When approached by media last Tuesday, Mr Barnett told journalists to leave him alone, but returned to the spotlight two days later by using his first post-election speech in Parliament to warn Labor risked taking the state back to the WA Inc era.

"One thing that is clear to me is that the preconditions for what happened in the 1980s and the early part of this century, exist today," Mr Barnett said.

"The preconditions of a particular government, a Labor government, a particular characteristic of the business community of the time, and a typical characteristic of the media of the time, are today replicated in Perth."

The comments led to Premier Mark McGowan comparing Mr Barnett to former federal leaders Tony Abbott and Mark Latham, and weren't particularly well-received by some of Mr Barnett's own colleagues.

Dr Nahan however did come Mr Barnett's defence, saying if the Premier chose to ignore the comments, he did so at his own peril.

"Colin was sitting on the opposition benches during the WA Inc years, prosecuting the case for a royal commission into the commercial activities of the then government and other matters," Dr Nahan said.

"The parallels between the first months of the Burke and the scandal-ridden Gallop-Carpenter governments and the first two months of the McGowan Government in relation to cuts and politicisation within the public sector are undeniable."

Message sent, but evidence of receipt unclear

Either way, the comments did little to help Dr Nahan and the Liberals move forward on their task of making the party competitive in opposition.

When Dr Nahan took the leader's job, he said his party had been sent a "very big message" by the electorate and the Liberals had received it.

But if anything significant has changed within the party since then, it is yet to become apparent.