had a "one person, one vote, one value" electoral system, with a maximum variation of 30% from the Statewide average quota. But in 1949 the Labor Party conducted a revision which varied the number of voters in each electorate according to their size and distance from Brisbane, the state capital in the far south-east of the huge state. Although difficulties in transport and communication were given as the reasons to reduce the size of remote and thinly-populated electorates, the effect was to give a huge advantage to the Labor Party, which at that time drew its voting strength from rural areas, a consequence of the party's formation in the outback Queensland town of Barcaldine half a century earlier. The newly elected Country Party MP for Nanango, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, spoke out against the redistribution, saying that it meant that "the majority will be ruled by the minority" and that the Labor government was telling the people "whether you like it or not, we will be the Government". The 1957 ALP split, in which Labor Premier Vince Gair led many MPs out of the party to form the Queensland Labor Party (QLP), undermined the advantage of the malapportionment to Labor. Since the boundaries were drawn to take advantage of the ALP's rural supporters (farm workers, miners etc.) the rural-based Country Party was able to take the most advantage from Labor's infighting. In 1971, Bjelke-Petersen, who had become Premier in 1968, proposed to refine the malapportionment to favour his party at the expense of his Coalition partners, the Liberal Party, as well as Labor. Electoral demographics had changed since 1949 and Labor now drew most of its support from urban concentrations of workers. Labor opposed the scheme, as did enough of the Liberals to defeat the bill in Parliament. However, Bjelke-Petersen worked during a four-month Parliamentary recess to redraft the scheme just enough to ensure the support of the Liberals. The new map was used as the basis for the May 1972 election, from which Bjelke-Petersen emerged victorious as Premier despite only receiving 20% of the vote, a smaller percentage than the Liberals (22.2%) or Labor (46.7%). But due to the Country Party's heavy concentration of support in the rural and remote zones, it won 26 seats. Combined with the Liberals' 21 seats, this gave the Coalition 47 seats to Labor's 33, consigning Labor to opposition even though it won far more actual