But the Orange MP believes his Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SFF) has given regional voters another option and is holding the major parties accountable.

The SFF ran candidates in both polls over the weekend, with both Matt Stadtmiller (Cootamundra) and Helen Dalton (Murray) polling well.

Swings of about 20 and 15 per cent respectively in those seats weren’t enough to pry them from the Nationals but Donato, who made history last November when he became the first member of his party elected to the lower house, said

“If this was a general election and those swings were replicated the Nats would have lost a number of seats, including Dubbo, Bathurst, Tamworth, Barwon, Upper Hunter and Tweed,” he said.

“Even though we didn’t win Cootamundra and Murray on Saturday, we were pleased with the swings against the National Party.

“We have taken those seats from being safe seats to marginal, and hopefully those communities can reap the benefits from that.

“People didn’t have an alternative to the major parties before, now in regional NSW they do and we are slowly but surely growing as people steer clear of the Nats and Labor.”

With the next State election scheduled for March 2019, Donato said his party will look to contest as many rural seats as possible, but said they would not run candidates just for the sake of it.

He added that at this stage they do not have a candidate for the seat of Dubbo.

“We saw on Saturday that we had two very good candidates in Matt Stadtmiller and Helen Dalton, and we performed well,” Mr Donato said.

“We want to try and compete in as many seats as possible but we will only run if we have a quality candidate.

“We haven’t got anyone for Dubbo but the election is a long way away yet. There’s nothing to say someone suitable won’t step up.

“I know there’s talk of some independent candidates running against the Nationals, which is good.”