Colin Barnett walked in to the first day of parliament on Tuesday telling the media to "leave him alone" but two days later was enthusiastically claiming he was "not finished yet".
Mr Barnett reminded parliament on Thursday he was WA's second longest-serving post-war premier and warned the corruption of WA Inc would return under the new Labor government.
Colin Barnett is feeling the heat from a proposed inquiry into his government's spending.Credit: Trevor Collens
The former Liberal leader was unceremoniously dumped from office on March 11, the record loss giving Labor the largest majority in WA history.
Mr Barnett has said little since, other than promoting a proposed $5 billion transcontinental gas pipeline to the the east coast in a newspaper interview.
Brian Burke in his days as WA Premier
His government's legacy was publicly criticised this week when an inquiry was launched into spending on major projects and the reasons for the record high debt and deficit woes, with Mr Barnett in line to give evidence.
But in his first speech as a backbencher, he said all the "preconditions" exist for another WA Inc scandal under the new Labor government.
WA Inc involved the loss of nearly $1 billion in public money in the 1980s connected to business deals between the Brian Burke Labor government and WA businessmen including Alan Bond and others.
On Thursday Mr Barnett recalled Treasurer Ben Wyatt who described him as a "despicable little man" during the election campaign.
"This particular 'despicable little man' is not finished yet," he said.
"I am not predicting that history will be repeated, indeed I hope that history is not repeated, but from that perspective of over 40 years, the one thing that is very clear to me is that the preconditions for what happened in the 80s and the early part of this century exist today.
"The preconditions, particularly from the 1980s of a particular government, a Labor government, a particular characteristic of the business community of the time, and a typical characteristic of the media of the time are today replicated in Perth and Western Australia."
He didn't elaborate further.
Mr Barnett had a bitter falling out with a group of prominent Perth business people last year agitating for him to step down and who leaked their own private polling against him.
At the time it prompted some locals to make comparisons with WA Inc and wealthy interests again interfering with democracy.
Mr Wyatt criticised Mr Barnett's speech as "bizarre, arrogant and out of touch" and said he seemed to believe there was a conspiracy against him.
AAP