WA Labor has demanded the Liberals guarantee its controversial plans to privatise Western Power won't lead to electricity price rises, job cuts or foreign ownership of the utility by releasing legislation before next weekend's election.
But the Liberals say no such legislation exists yet because the party is waiting to get a mandate for the sale of the poles and wires company if it is re-elected for a third term.
The sale is shaping up as possibly the biggest issue of the campaign with political analyst William Bowe warning it is unpopular, with hostility to privatisation running very deep.
The Liberal National government claims it will generate $11 billion, erasing $8 billion of public debt held by Western Power and freeing up $3 billion for a "next generation fund" for education and transport infrastructure.
Labor treasury spokesman Ben Wyatt said on Friday the Barnett government was making "all sorts of guarantees" about the sale in taxpayer-funded ads running since last November and it must have drafted legislation.
The guarantees include commitments prices will not rise significantly because they are set by a regulator and the company remaining in Australian hands because the 51 per cent to be floated on the share market will be offered to local funds and investors.
However, Mr Wyatt said, private operators wanting a return would mean larger power price rises.
"What I want to see is what's embedded in legislation," Mr Wyatt said.
The $11 billion sale price for 51 per cent in November was strangely high given 100 per cent of it was valued a month earlier by PricewaterhouseCoopers at only $16 billion, Mr Wyatt said.
He questioned what deals the government had already made with a merchant bank.
"If you are going to sell it, Western Australians want to know what are you going to do around guaranteeing power prices," he said.
"What are you going to do around ensuring jobs stay in Western Australia, and what deals have been done with that unnamed merchant bank to inflate a sale price for half of Western Power to $11 billion?"
Treasurer Mike Nahan said Mr Wyatt's allegations were false and no deal or legislation had been done.
"If the Labor Party has evidence of a conspiracy then state it or shut up," he told reporters.
He said there would be no significant job losses, as Labor claimed, because Western Power had already been restructured in the past two years and there was a company commitment to maintain apprenticeship/cadet engineer rates at 45 to 50 a year.
Dr Nahan committed to the government bringing the budget back into surplus within the next four years on Friday, rejecting Treasury predictions that it would not happen, and said debt would be reduced by at least $10 billion.
Share
