As is traditional at this time of year, partisans and supplicants roamed the halls of Parliament House on Wednesday, grateful or otherwise of their allocation of the money in Tuesday’s federal budget.

Few have more reason to give thanks than Rex deputy chairman John Sharp, the former Nationals MP who spent the day in his old stomping ground. And for those Sharp didn’t manage to personally meet, the airline found a way of making an impression anyway, by giving them their very own Boeing 737 “in recognition of the launch of [Rex’s] domestic operations”.