West Australian Premier Colin Barnett has denied his backflip over an unpopular state budget cost savings measure was due to pressure from a "grumpy" federal Liberal MP.
The Liberal leader says he was not pushed into abandoning the plan to slash the solar feed-in tariff rate for households that funnel surplus power back into the grid from 40c per kilowatt hour to 20c/kWh.
The move was expected to save $51 million but was abandoned four days after being announced in last Thursday's budget following a huge public backlash and from within the state Liberal party.
It flew in the face of a 2011 letter from power utility Synergy that said the 40c/kWh rate was locked in for 10 years.
"I was not prevailed on," Mr Barnett told reporters.
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"I received one fairly grumpy message from one federal member - that was it."
Asked who sent the message, the Premier responded: "You can do your own research".
Mr Barnett was repentant and accepted the government has egg on its face, saying he was conscious of the backlash.
"You can't ignore it. There's an election on and it's never good to have a controversy during an election campaign.
"I apologise. I'm sorry this happened.
"It was a mistake, we accept that, we've reversed the decision and I guess we move on from there."
Mr Barnett said the decision to reverse the plan was made with householders' hip pockets in mind.
"It was the impact that it had on individual people, many of them retired who had in good faith used their savings, their superannuation or borrowed money to enter into a scheme."
In response to the threat of a class action by householders, Treasurer Troy Buswell on Friday said the tariff cut was "allowable within the constraints of the contracts".
But Mr Barnett said people had signed up to the solar scheme not realising there was "room to alter the contract".
At the same time, the scheme was too generous at 40c/kWh, making it "unfair" for other electricity users.
Energy Minister Mike Nahan said it was a tough budget and the Treasurer had to cut costs in the electricity system, but the government "went too far".
"We learned the lesson, we backed off of it," Mr Nahan said.
"I'm not embarrassed."
Mr Nahan denied Mr Buswell - who had only moments earlier told journalists there was no chance the decision would be reversed - was "rolled" in cabinet.
The program, introduced in 2009, was such a success the Liberal government admitted in 2011 the take-up cap had been breached, costing it some $46 million more than planned.
