WA Opposition Leader Mark McGowan has condemned the Barnett Government, saying its record debt and deficit budget demonstrates its "pathological disregard" for good financial management.

In his budget reply speech, Mr McGowan told Parliament the budget should have provided a road map to a better future for the state.

Instead, he said the government had delivered a "dim and dismal document" without "hope or inspiration".

"This has been a job-destroying, job-killing budget at exactly the time we needed the opposite," he said.

"And the reason you've done it is because the Liberal and National parties have ruined, in a way [that was] unimaginable, unimaginable, 10 years ago."

Mr McGowan said it was a "selfish" budget that was the culmination of the Barnett Government's years of financial mismanagement.

"[The Government has] had seven years with seven treasurers in that period of time and a pathological disregard for worrying about the future and for budgeting properly."

Mr McGowan said the budget was a tale of two states, showing where the state should have been, and where it actually is.

He catalogued a range of measures, from budget surpluses to better public transport planning, that he believed should have been the legacy of the prosperity of the mining boom.

Instead, Mr McGowan said the budget was focused on the short-term needs of the Government.

"That's what this document is. It is a document of political selfishness," he said.

"It has the worst level of debt, the worst deficit, a declining asset investment program and it has left a gigantic land mine for future governments, for future premiers and future generations."

Mr McGowan said the deficit and debt of the Government had defied the surpluses and low debt it had been given by the previous Labor government.

"There is some symmetry there...the debt is going from $3.6 billion when this government arrived in office to $36 billion," he said.

"At least its easy for people to understand - a 900 per cent increase in debt."

Falling iron ore price no excuse for deficit: Opposition

The Opposition Leader dismissed the Premier's claim that the deficit could not have been avoided because of plunging iron ore prices and a falling share of GST revenue from the Commonwealth.

He said the Barnett Government had simply failed to plan for inevitable decline in record iron ore prices.

"And all in all, means the promises the Government made in the good times will now be paid for in the bad," he said.

"You didn't ever take account of the fact that the iron prices ... weren't going to go on forever."

Yet, Mr McGowan said he was concerned by the Premier's comments in Parliament yesterday that WA's high debt was "not such a bad position to be in" because of record low interest rates.

"So in other words, in the coming year, $31 billion of debt because interest rates are low, and as we all know, that's locked in stone for 30 years," he said facetiously.

"They will rise, and when they rise, this debt will still be sitting there."

He said it was an example of the Government's short term thinking.

"The excuses that are made, the lack of responsibility, is all based on what is required to get through today," he said.

'Budget of broken promises'

Mr McGowan said for West Australians, the budget was full of "broken promises and nasty cuts".

He criticised the increases in land tax and utility costs, and what he labelled as broken promises: Max light rail, the Albany gas pipeline, the upgrade of Royal Perth Hospital, and the pledge not to sell Fremantle Port.

He dismissed the Government's asset sale as a hastily assembled effort to appease the credit rating agencies warning of another potential downgrade.

The Government's expanded asset sales list published in the budget includes the Port of Fremantle, the TAB, some power assets, public building and parcels of land.

"This group of asset sales is a desperate indication to the credit rating agencies, please don't take it away, because we're going to do these things in the future," he said.

Mr McGowan closed his speech with a pitch to the electorate, and said the only way to solve the problem was to remove the Barnett Government.

"It's time for a change. It's a worn out government. It's leaving the worst financial and economic legacy to its successor in the history of the state. It doesn't take responsibility for its own actions," he said.