Baird backs Ferguson on 'scare campaign'

Mike Baird has backed calls by former federal Labor minister Martin Ferguson for NSW Labor to drop a scare campaign over electricity prices.

Mr Ferguson, who was resources minister for six years, says NSW Labor is duping the public with claims electricity bills will rise should Mr Baird proceed with a plan to lease 49 per cent of the state's poles and wires.

"In many ways I am ashamed of the (Labor) party," Mr Ferguson told Fairfax Media on Tuesday.

He said the campaign created "unnecessary fear" and slammed it as an attempt to scare people into voting Labor based on misinformation.

Mr Baird backed the comments on Thursday, describing them as Labor leader Luke Foley's "emperor has no clothes moment".

"For (Mr Ferguson) to say that he is ashamed of NSW Labor and their dishonest scare campaign, well that says it all," he told reporters in Sydney.

"My call to the leader of the opposition is: listen to Martin Ferguson. Stop running a dishonest campaign."