The Prime Minister unveiled his new frontbench on Monday after promising the first post-election partyroom meeting "we are not going to hit the ground reviewing, we are going to hit the ground doing".

Liberal Party campaign director Tony Nutt and pollster Mark Textor also fronted MPs in Canberra - with several complaining about the election campaign's strategy and tactics - to discuss the July 2 result, which saw the government lose a swag of seat but hang on to government.

Mr Turnbull dismissed suggestions he could have promoted more conservatives in more than a dozen tweaks to his front bench, and he had been hamstrung by the need to increase the number of Nationals in the ministry.

But just one conservative, Canberra senator Zed Seselja, was promoted from the backbench to become assistant minister for social services and multicultural affairs, while Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was restored to cabinet's National Security Committee.

There was considerable surprise that Mr Turnbull did not promote fellow conservative "mod-con", or modern conservative, MP Michael Sukkar, who grew his margin in the ultra-marginal Victorian seat of Deakin at the election.

"I'm not going to put conservative or moderate or Liberal tags on my colleagues. I have made big changes to the ministry only a few months ago consequent upon a number of retirements . . . most of the ministers who have held their job in the ministry as it exists today, prior to the swearing-in tomorrow, have held their jobs for a relatively short time," he said.

Older conservatives such as Eric Abetz and Kevin Andrews, who have either been angling for a return to the frontbench or for former prime minister Tony Abbott to return to the frontbench as Defence Minister also missed out.

Instead, Turnbull loyalist Christopher Pyne emerged as one of the big winners, moving from the industry and innovation portfolio to a new cabinet post as minister of defence industry, where he will oversee about $90 billion of defence industry procurement including frigates, submarines and offshore patrol boats.

Long-serving Environment Minister Greg Hunt takes over Mr Pyne's cabinet portfolio, while Josh Frydenberg has moved into a new super portfolio of Environment and Energy. The well-regarded Turnbull backer Scott Ryan stayed in the outer ministry but received the much more senior role of Special Minister of State.

Defence Minister Marise Payne was seen internally as one of the big losers in the reshuffled and expanded 23-member cabinet, losing key portfolio responsibilities to Mr Pyne, while Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer had her portfolio renamed Revenue and Financial Services, while losing responsibility for Small Business.

Several colleagues of Ms O'Dwyer's portrayed the decision to take away small business as a "huge slap-down". She has endured a tough time handling proposed superannuation changes, but others said it made sense and that the new title provide a clearer delineation of responsibilities between her and Treasurer Scott Morrison.

"What we are doing in the Defence Industry is completely transformational...that's why we have two great cabinet Ministers - Marise Payne is an outstanding Defence Minister and we have in Christopher Pyne someone whose energy is perhaps legendary and he will need all of that to ensure that these projects are being delivered," he said.

The Nationals picked up new portfolios and an extra cabinet minister because of their proportionally increased numbers in the Coalition partyroom.

Deputy leader Fiona Nash added local government and territories, Matthew Canavan moved into cabinet after just two years in Parliament taking on Northern Australia and Resources from Mr Frydenberg, Michael McCormack moved up to the outer ministry as small business minister and two new assistant ministers - Luke Hartsuyker and David Gillespie - were appointed.

Senator Abetz - who helped engineer the relegation of the only Tasmanian minister, Richard Colbeck, to No.5 on the Senate ticket, a position Mr Colbeck will likely lose - put out a statement bemoaning the fact that his state now had no ministers on Monday.

One MP said that Mr Sukkar had "got an amazing result in his seat, he is very smart, he must be the next cab off the rank".

"There was only one spot up for grabs and that's what we got," said another conservative MP, "at least Malcolm is much more sympathetic to younger conservatives."