Voters are being prepared for Tony Abbott to emulate West Australian Premier Colin Barnett and backflip on numerous election promises, according to high-profile WA Labor candidate Alannah MacTiernan.

Mr Abbott's federal campaign hit a speed bump on Tuesday, when Liberal backbencher Don Randall said the coalition may have to consider going back on election promises given the poor state of the national budget.

After Mr Abbott publicly chastised the MP for Canning, Ms MacTiernan claimed the comments were a sign of things to come, pointing out that during the WA election campaign, Mr Abbott had cited Mr Barnett as one of his political idols.

"Mr Randall is setting the scene - even before the election - for Mr Abbott to be walking away from his election promises," Ms MacTiernan said.

"Mr Abbott has said he wants to model himself on Mr Barnett, and that would be a pretty frightening prospect after the last couple of months have seen a complete betrayal of the [Barnett election] commitments."

Mr Barnett's troubled run since regaining power in March came to a head on Monday, when he was forced into a big backflip after public outrage over a budget decision to halve the solar feed-in tariff rate for homes that feed back power to the grid.

It was reported that senior Liberal figures feared the local solar heat for Mr Barnett would harm their federal chances in WA.

And Ms MacTiernan, who is standing for the seat of Perth as potential successor to Stephen Smith, said she had seen that happening first hand.

"I have seen people berating the Liberal candidate saying that you are from the Liberals and I don't care whether you are federal or state," Ms MacTiernan said.

"If a party is unpopular at one level of government, it can have a spill-over into the election at another level."

Australia Being 'Set Up' By Tony Abbott

as for the great democrat, Colin Barnett ….

When challenged last week about broken election promises - including forced council amalgamations - Mr Barnett shrugged it off, saying the community doesn't study election commitments and shouldn't expect all of the pledges to be adhered to.

Barnett Backlash Bodes Ill For Abbott