NSW Liberal Leader Peter Debnam said today Michael Costa ignores Labor's financial disasters in NSW.

“Michael Costa's memory lapse seems to ensure he forgets NSW voters elect the Coalition to clean up Labor's financial mess,” Mr Debnam said.

“Here we go again - Labor has presented NSW voters with a $700 million deficit this year (more likely $1 billion) and are putting the state back into massive debt,” he said.

“Michael Costa pretends that next year NSW will bounce magically back into a surplus of $300 million. Nobody else agrees.

“A realistic assessment of his assumptions suggests the deficit next year under Labor's stumbling approach is more likely to be $1 billion deficit again.

“Remember when Labor last lost office in 1988, they left behind an operating deficit of $1.3 billion, a bloated bureaucracy and public sector debt of more than $40 billion.

“Nick Greiner was elected to clean up Labor's mess and reform the public sector. During the Coalition time in office, we all had to endure Paul Keating's "recession we had to have" and that caused massive problems for every state government as well as every family in Australia.

“Michael Costa would do well to stop playing at politics and start adopting my policies, eg: a recruitment freeze on Sydney bureaucrats.

“Let's start forcing Labor to manage responsibly,” Mr Debnam said.