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but I was admitted to the caucus meeting with full voting rights. All positions were declared vacant. Wran and Ferguson were again elected unopposed; and then the returning officer read out the caucus roll, so that each member could nominate for cabinet.
When "Stewart, A." was read, I call out "Yes!" in a loud voice, looking across towards Wran. He did not catch my eye. There were twenty-nine nominations for the fifteen positions which remained to be filled.
When the ballot papers were finally counted, there were some upsets. Two of the older ministers, Bill Haigh and Bill Crabtree were defeated. The new ministers were all young and from the Right: Anderson, Brereton, Cleary and Whealan. The Left had not been able to increase its representation in cabinet -- Walker had somehow got his numbers wrong. I had some third last in the field, ahead of George Peterson and Bill Knott, two old diehards of the Left.
Wran punished me lightly for my disobedience: I was dropped from the Parliamentary Library Committee.
True to form, the Tooth Fairy continued to use every trick in the book to frustrate the declaration of the poll. He took out an injunction in the Supreme Court restraining the Returning Officer on the grounds that ballot papers containing either ticks or crosses should have been rejected. A similar claim was made by Bruce McDonald in respect of the seat of North Sydney,