He has visited polling booths at Deniliquin, Finley, Berrigan and Leeton.

Mr Piccoli will visit a number of polling booths in Griffith this afternoon.

He said he liked to thank the booth workers for their efforts.

Mr Piccoli said he was feeling confident because all of the feedback he had received today was positive.

“People are happy with the NSW government,” he said.

Mr Piccoli said he was disappointed there was a lot of negativity in the election campaign.

“If I could characterise the election in any way, it has been very negative and it’s been at the expense of community confidence,” Mr Piccoli said.

“This talking down of our region has been going on for some time and if a young person is thinking about staying or going, when they hear that they will say ‘why would I stay in Griffith?’

“There’s actually really good things happening in Griffith, but if you keep going with this you’re putting all the good stuff at risk.”

Mr Piccoli said he agreed that everybody in the region would have preferred if the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was never implemented.

But he said he did not support abandoning it.

Instead, he said he believed there needed to be more flexibility and an end to buybacks.

“There needs to be much more flexibility about how we manage environmental and productive water,” Mr Piccoli said.