But when Treasurer Dominic Perrottet (pictured) handed down the NSW Budget at midday on Tuesday, that tap was emphatically shut off.

You would be hard-pressed to find the word “Bathurst” anywhere in the budget papers, such was the comprehensive shunning of the region.

That’s not to say say local households won’t benefit from such programs as the extended Active Kids that will hand $100 to parents of school-aged children for music lessons, language classes or coding courses, or (potentially) the funding of My Community Dividend, an initiative that will give residents the chance to nominate local projects worth between $20,000 and $200,000.

But as for those infrastructure programs that will see multi-million dollar upgrades to highways, schools or hospitals in the region – well, there’s always next year, we suppose.

Not even the region’s new ambulance station that had been listed for mention in the previous three budgets could rate a mention this time round – because work has finally started.

It can’t have been an oversight, because MPs know better than most that when it comes to government spending the voters are only interested in what’s in it for them. What’s in it for their neighbours or the rest of the state comes a distant second.

And given this is the last budget before NSW voters go to the polls next March, that can only mean one thing: the government is not expecting a fight to hold this seat.

The Nationals’ Paul Toole holds Bathurst by a comfortable 15.8 per cent margin and currently has zero contenders lining up to challenge him for it.

Mr Toole has survived the government’s council amalgamations and greyhound racing ban debacles better than many of his colleagues, even winning a promotion in the last Berejiklian-Barilaro reshuffle.

He remains a popular local member in Bathurst while continuing to work hard to win votes in Oberon, where the amalgamations saga saw many locals turn against him and the Nationals, and the traditional Labor stronghold of Lithgow.

And he’s doing such a good job that the government seems content to hand down a Bathurst-free budget. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be in  a safe seat.