Labor says next WA poll will be on debt

West Australians will have to decide at the next election whether Premier Colin Barnett has treated them fairly with spiralling debt and a ballooning deficit, the opposition says.

Opposition treasury spokesman Ben Wyatt said Mr Barnett had only governed for his own legacy, not the future of the state's people.

Mr Wyatt told 6PR radio it would be up to voters in the 2017 election to decide if the government's focus on long-term legacy projects like Perth Stadium and Elizabeth Quay was to their detriment.

Labor leader Mark McGowan said everyone was "shell-shocked" by the government's approach to WA's finances and they should have planned for the bad times.

Mr McGowan told ABC radio it would take decades to undo the problems the Liberal Barnett government had caused but a panicked fire sale of state assets was not the way to go.