Queenslander Jim Chalmers is considering running for the leadership of the Labor party and wants to play a substantial role in rebuilding after the election loss.
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The member for Rankin said on Q&A that he was talking to his colleagues and was considering a tilt at the leadership.
"I'm considering it. I'm talking to my colleagues about it. I don't think it's unreasonable that a few of us take some time to work out what we want to do," he said on Monday night.
The election loss on Saturday was "heartbreaking" but wanted to play a substantial role in the party's future, he said.
"I want to play a substantial role in the rebuilding of our electoral fortunes, the rebuilding of our policies. The exact nature of the substantial role is to be determined."
It comes as Anthony Albanese announced his intentions for the role and said he would be a different Labor leader to Bill Shorten because of their different paths.
"I'm someone who comes from a different background," he told ABC's 7:30 on Monday, after mentioning he was raised by a single mother in public housing in Sydney's inner west.
"I have had a range of jobs. I'm an economist by training. I've been in parliament for more than 20 years.
"I'm very much a consensus person, and people will judge me by who I am rather than by comparison to Bill Shorten or anyone else."
Mr Albanese is the only person to have confirmed he will contest the Labor leadership since Mr Shorten resigned on Saturday after his party's election loss.
Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek will not try to fill the top job, despite receiving support from across the party.
"Now is not my time," she said in a statement on Monday.
"At this point, I cannot reconcile the important responsibilities I have to my family with the additional responsibilities of the Labor leadership."
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen, also from the Labor right, is also considering whether he will run.
Labor's national executive committee met on Monday to lay out the framework for the leadership ballot.
The full Labor executive, comprising senior MPs and key party officials, will meet on Wednesday.
The search for the next leader is expected to take about one month.
Rank and file members will first cast their votes, followed by the federal Labor caucus, before the results are averaged out and a winner is crowned.
Mr Albanese, who came second in the last leadership ballot in 2013, believes Labor needs to listen to people in the outer suburbs and the regions to understand why the party lost the election.
Opposition frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon believes the party has drifted too far to the left.
"We certainly have to get back to the centre and we have to reconnect to our working class base," he told ABC Radio National.
Doug Cameron, a leading figure in the Labor left who retired from the Senate at the election, disagrees.
"This is not the time to panic and move to the 'centre' as a proxy for abandoning progressive policies and capitulating once again to neoliberalism," he tweeted.
Australian Associated Press
