In the electorate that delivered the Snowy Hydro scheme and where hundreds of workers are employed in the electricity industry, both the current Nationals' member John Barilaro and his Labor rival Steve Whan agreed this week that the NSW Government's goal to raise up to $20 billion for new infrastructure by privatisting 49 per cent of the state's electricity network was the biggest issue in the electorate.

John Barilaro sensed the importance of the issue to his electorate from the outset, and publicly opposed the sale of any Government-owned electricity infrastructure when the NSW Government began flagging the move early last year. He also moved a motion for his party to oppose privatisation at the NSW Nationals conference in 2014.

In the end, he and his Nationals' colleagues had to settle for a compromise deal, with the Government agreeing to keep regional electricity provider Essential Energy 100pc government-owned.

Mr Barilaro said this week that he hoped that would assure Monaro voters of his commitment to the local electricity industry, and said Labor was running a scare campaign on the issue.

"I think it's the mistruths around poles and wires, I think that's the big issue," Mr Barilaro said. "We've been honest enough to go to an election with a very bold policy, which is the leasing of 49 per cent of the poles and wires.

"But Essential Energy- the local ones- aren't being touched. They'll remain 100pc government owned. Yet we've got the big union movement and the Labor party who are telling porkies, that we're selling electricity assets. And we're not."

However Steve Whan said the electorate wasn't buying it.

"It's a half and half position, and we know that with the Howard Government and [privatising] Telstra, as soon as they'd sold 49pc they started work on 100pc.

"People keep telling me it's like 'you can't be half pregnant'- I'm hearing that all the time," Mr Whan said. "We all know that Mike Baird and Andrew Constance want to sell 100pc [of the network]."

The Country Labor candidate said the issue wasn't just a hot one in the regional parts of the electorate, but in Queanbeyan as well.

"We've had a strong response on this issue, door-knocking in Queanbeyan and Jerrabomberra," Mr Whan said.

"It's a little bit like [privatising] something like the railways. You want private companies to run the train services, but you don't want them owning the railway. It's the same with electricity- you're only going to have one grid.

"I'm certainly getting a strong response to it. People don't want to see it sold full stop," he said.

And Mr Barilaro agreed that privatising state assets was unpopular, telling The Queanbeyan Age this week that many residents in country areas had experienced service drops when the Howard Government privatised Telstra.

"They are concerned, because in the country they've seen privatisations like when Telstra was privatised. And today, we've got mobile phone blackspots in some areas. If that was government owned, it may not be the case, so they're concerned about the level of service.

"That's why we've excluded Essential Energy, because they are the bush poles and wires. That's what I fought for," he said.