“Sometimes your time comes up, I suppose. It's a bit like when you go and play football and suddenly you realise you've played your last game without really knowing why.”

Sitting in the office he's held for 12 years, Davis is flanked by a portrait of Banjo Paterson. On the desk rests a bust of the poet, two mini Australian flags, a takeaway hot chocolate, and bag of potato chips. His mobile phone springs to life with seven calls in two hours. But there is one missing accessory.

“On the first day I got here, there was a machine on the desk. I said 'what's that?', and the staff said ‘it's a computer’, and I said ‘well, it looks like a snake to me, take it away’, and it disappeared. I've never seen a computer in here since. I don't need one; in here we just sit down and talk.”

And talk he does. Orange’s longest-serving mayor has a lot on his mind - and a lot to get off his chest - before he bows out of public life for good. Saturday’s council elections will be the first the enigmatic political animal has not contested in 30 years. 

His retirement brings to an end a successful but often turbulent tenure. Twelve of his 13 years on Orange City Council have been as mayor; he was “sin binned” in 2008 after a draw with Reg Kidd produced a cliffhanger in the battle for the top job. A name had to be pulled out of a hat; it was not his. Davis was shocked and hurt, but accepted the result and sat on the benches for a year.

“I'm a team player. I can be the boss or the ball boy,” Davis says, through a wry smile.

“A couple of councillors thought a change was as good as a holiday. The few hours after that meeting were pretty tough but within a day, councillors came to me and said ‘we've done the wrong thing’.”

Over the next 12 months, he rebuilt support and seized the job back.

Colleagues and council staff consider Davis a passionate advocate, successful lobbyist and competent ring leader. Even the mayor’s fiercest critics concede he is a cunning strategist who only occasionally loses his temper.

Davis’s unashamedly pro-development views have ruffled feathers but achieved results. Since his decision to retire, he has scrawled on two sides of one crumpled piece of paper a long list of big-ticket items built under his reign. Politically contentious projects like the Macquarie pipeline, stormwater harvesting scheme, indoor swimming pool and Northern Distributor Road are sources of pride.

“If you want a mayor to do stuff, I’m your bloke. If you want me to sit here and mark time, I’m sorry, I’ve got better things to do,” he says.

“When I was at school, people would finish, go to university and never come back here. There were no jobs. It’s totally different now. But that only happens by moving ahead. The biggest threat is not over-development. The biggest threat is stopping and starting, and stuffing around.

“A place like Orange can’t stand still. You either go backwards or forwards. I like going forwards.”

Forward propulsion is not the only thing that has made him tick. 

“I'm just very, very comfortable wheeling and dealing. I think I understand the ordinary bloke, the ordinary Australian, better than most. I really need a stopper to make me not become a big-head and this job is great for that. You need people to keep you grounded, help you be an ordinary Australian. I'd hate anybody to say ‘he's bigger than his boots’. I've never sat down and said ‘I want to get on council, I want to be there for 10 years, I want to be the longest serving mayor of Orange’. I've never, ever been like that.”

But he is acutely aware of criticism, and that his harshest detractors think he's “a crook” only in it for himself. He detects a recent trend towards more personal attacks on public officials, an “ugly” part of civic life he puts down to the rise of social media. In turn, Davis has not shied away from a fight, and not been afraid to dismiss opponents of change as a noisy minority.

“I'm amazed it hasn’t broke me. About 99 per cent of council decisions go straight to the keeper and they are fine, but then you stir up people with that one per cent along the way.”

“I would always defend people’s right to object, but most of the objections can’t be held up, that’s the problem. Some people argue with no substance, no reason.”

Davis first thought about quitting more than two years ago. But on a Friday morning in December 2015, a tantalising opportunity came over the horizon. The then NSW premier, Mike Baird, unveiled a once-in-a-generation reshaping of the state’s councils: the number of Sydney councils would be slashed from 43 to 24, and regional councils reduced from 109 to 87. Orange, Cabonne and Blayney would merge to form a super-regional council of 68,000 ratepayers, spanning nearly 8000 square kilometres.

For Davis, a long-time advocate of mergers who prides himself on thinking big, the prospect of leading the new body proved impossible to pass up.

“I said to my family ‘look, if this comes along, I'd like a crack at this’, because it would be a huge challenge and you’ve got to have a challenge.”

The merged council would have had a projected annual revenue of $170 million and asset base of $1.2 billion.

It was a long way from Davis' early days on Blayney Shire Council, where he served for 17 years before Orange. Davis recalls after being elected to the small council, fresh-faced councillors piled into a mini-bus to examine a long to-do list of new roads, bridges and sewers.

“We got back to the council chambers at five in the arvo with dust and dirt and shit all over us. The shire president, Barry Colbert, said ‘righto, you’ve seen what we’ve got, it’s a big list’. I put my hand up and said ‘how much will it cost to fix this?’, and the figure was something like $2 million.”

“I thought ‘that’s pretty reasonable’ and I said ‘okay, so how much have we got?’. Barry said ‘$26,000’. I thought right, we're in a bit of trouble.”

“Blayney was terrific but it took about four years to feel comfortable and if councillors are honest with themselves, they are not effective for three or four years.”

“You think you are going to change the world but reality soon hits.”

Fast forward to 2017. Reality hit Davis with tremendous speed. The debate over Mike Baird’s controversial council mergers quickly became toxic for the NSW government and the NSW Nationals.

At the same time, Davis’s family noticed the grandfather, father, brother and husband had grown increasingly grumpy. “There’s no risk I was not my normal self. I had 27 or so years when things were pretty good, but then the family said it was clear the pressure was getting to me.”

The government scrapped the merger in February, and Davis has held a grudge against all involved ever since.

A conversation with an acquaintance who had weighed up taking his own life solidified his thinking that family and friends deserved more, and it was time to quit.

He then confided in councillor Neil Jones, who had also decided not to stand for re-election. An unlikely friendship had developed between the pair despite frequent disagreements in the chamber.

“I’ve got to say, if he would have stood for election, I certainly would have recommended and backed him for mayor,” Davis says of Jones, a Green.

Pinpointing Davis’ political leanings has always been a fraught exercise (“I’ve always been terrified of people putting me in boxes”). Davis supports voluntary euthanasia, believes in same-sex marriage and is pro-immigration (although confesses to some concerns about Muslim immigration).

But those progressive tendencies do not extend to climate change.

“The environment, I care for. We are all greenies. But climate change, I’ve got to say, I really don’t believe. You might say that’s a bloody dumb thing to say, but that’s what I think.”

He also thinks it’s a “bloody disgrace” Australia is keeping vast parts of its coal reserves in the ground, and wants Australia to export more uranium. 

VIDEO: John Davis announcing his retirement:

For his part, Jones talks up the “mutual respect” between the two men, despite their differences.

“I certainly respect the way in which John has held and argued his points of view, even though on many occasions we have had differences,” Jones says.

“He didn't let those differences interfere with our roles on council, and he never acted towards me in a malicious or nasty way.”

Jones noted a factor in Davis’s long run on council was his good working relationship with the general manager, Garry Styles, and his rapport with council staff.

“The other special thing is that John and I both appreciate and value our families and the sacrifices they have made.”

Davis will spend election day with his family and insists he won’t spend too long reflecting on his name not appearing on the ballot paper. He dismisses talk of legacies and refuses to nominate one.

“I say to young blokes ‘do you like cricket?’, and they say ‘no’, and I say ‘well, I bet you are no good at it’. That’s a fact. You have to enjoy something to be good at it. 

“I was very, very ordinary at school. I’m personally shy, unbelievably shy. But I have loved serving the community and I think I have been pretty alright at it.”

Is he confident others will agree?

“I would hope that even if they were a bit one-sided against me, they would say ‘well, at least he got things done’. My pet hate in local government, or anything, is people who are ‘gonnas’ - they’re gonna do this or they’re gonna do that, but do nothing.

“We set out to achieve things, we tried to do them to the best of our ability. We’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we did things.

“I don’t need to be remembered for anything in particular. I’d be very happy if, one night for instance, I was sitting in the gutter, and I was looking a bit worse for wear, and you simply thought enough of me to come up and just say ‘g’day’.

“That’s all I'd like.”