PREMIER Barry O'Farrell's budget and transport strategy is hostage to two MPs who want shooting in schools and national parks and a freeze on immigration applications.

Shooters and Fishers Party MPs Robert Brown and Robert Borsak, who received just 3.7 per cent of the vote at the election, are the most powerful people in parliament.

They control the balance of power in the upper house and have shown they are willing to block reforms to pay for new transport projects, including any plan to sell off the electricity industry.

The Shooters are in a stalemate with the government on graffiti laws, are considering whether to back police death and disability reforms and have signalled an anti-privatisation stance.

Shooters Party backs guns for schools

Mr O'Farrell said he hoped "the Shooters Party would recognise the mandate overwhelmingly given to the government to fix the state", as he heads into the final two weeks of parliament for 2011.

Mr Borsak, speaking on electricity privatisation, said it could "make a very lazy Premier even lazier".

Both MPs met the Police Association yesterday and will talk to Police Minister Mike Gallacher this week before deciding whether to block police death and disability reforms worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The reforms have angered the association because they could mean officers suffering psychological injury who had previously received $560,000 payouts could now get as little as $81,000. The government said the reforms were needed to stem bleeding from a scheme which is estimated to cost the state $2.5 billion over the next four years.

Secret bid for schools pistols

The Shooters may also not support the government's proposed $3 billion sell-off of Port Botany - required to build the North West Rail Link.Some ministers have speculated on a referendum for the abolition of the upper house at the next election if their reform agenda was blocked.

Mr Brown said the pair was reluctant to pass an electricity sale without major caveats - including a minimum $50 billion sale price and protection of power workers' jobs and electricity prices.

On a possible electricity privatisation, Mr Borsak said: "I wouldn't care less if they offered us the harbour bridge - we're not going to change our position".

Mr O'Farrell said he hoped the Shooters Party would respect his "mandate" for reform to "make NSW strong again".

Editorial page 20s"The people expect us to cut waste and get the state moving but we can only do that if our reforms get through the Upper House."

Originally published as The Shooter MPs holding up NSW