The Western Advocate is a paper for the whole Bathurst region and our readers include as many staunch Labor voters as there are rusted-on Nationals and committed Greens.

So trying to tell them all how they should vote would not only be presumptuous, but also quite stupid. We have nothing to gain by alienating great swathes of our readers.

This election, though, we do have a position on who you should not vote for.

Two of the five candidates on your ballot paper tomorrow have done nothing to earn your vote and have no interest in representing your region.

As far as we can tell, neither Narelle Rigby from the Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) nor Tom Cripps from No Land Tax has even visited the electorate during the campaign. Or, if they have, they have made no effort to notify the local newspaper which has been very keen to interview them.

Both candidates seem to have gone out of their way to avoid speaking to this newspaper and they certainly haven’t been out knocking on doors.

So if they’re not willing to put in the smallest effort to earn your vote, then you would be selling both yourself and your electorate short by supporting them.

Worse, if either candidate was able to collect four per cent of the local vote – and Ms Rigby’s position at the top of the ballot paper gives a real chance of doing just that – then they would be entitled to claim electoral expenses back from the taxpayer. That is, you would be paying them for their inaction.

By contrast, Labor’s Cassandra Coleman, the Nationals’ Paul Toole and the Greens’ Tracey Carpenter are all local people who live, work and have raised families in the Bathurst electorate.

They have a real desire to see the electorate go forward and have made themselves available to voters seeking to ask questions of them.

They are the only real candidates in this contest.