While Wheeler led on the first ballot with 103 votes against 92 for Humphries and 71 for Carnell (the other five candidates being eliminated for not achieving the qualifying 10 per cent) it was obvious that his bloc was too small and would be swamped by preferences from whichever of the other two candidates remained in the contest.
When Carnell was eliminated on 95, trailing Humphries (138) and Wheeler (129) it was merely a matter of the margin; Humphries scored convincingly by 191 votes to 147 with three informals.
Despite Wheeler's glitzy campaign he remained largely unknown - the only one of the eight who had not previously carried the Liberal banner at an election. Bill Stefaniak and Steve Pratt are both MLAs and have each run for Federal seats before, as had David Kibbey, Belinda Barnier and Martin Dunn.
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It was, in all, a significant triumph for the local party.
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About the Author
Dr Norman Abjorensen, a Visiting Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at the ANU, is author of Leadership and the Liberal Revival: Bolte, Askin and the Post-war Ascendancy, published next month by Australian Scholarly Publishing.
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