votes. In 1977 another redistribution eliminated some Liberal seats, reducing the internal threat to the Country Party (now renamed the National Party) from its coalition partner. Electoral effect The putative reasons given for reducing the number of voters in remote and rural electorates have some validity: in 1949, the electorate of Gregory was larger in area than Great Britain, but contained fewer than 6000 voters. In addition, it contained vast areas of desert and the few communities in the electorate were poorly served by road and rail links. Other electorates were almost as large: in fact, the four electorates of Gregory, Cook, Flinders and Mount Isa together comprised nearly two-thirds of Queensland's entire landmass. The difficulties of keeping in touch with the population over such enormous and diverse regions were cited by Labor in 1949, and the Country Party in 1971, as reasons for malapportionment. At the 1956 election, the change from the previous one vote-one value system was dramatic: the Brisbane-area seat of Mount Gravatt had 26307 voters, while the seat of Charters Towers in far northern Queensland had just 4367, a ratio of six to one. If the number of votes cast per party is divided by the number of seats won, the effect on party representation is underscored. In 1956 the Labor Party needed 7000 votes to win each seat, the Country Party 9900, and the Liberals 23800. By 1972, the disparity in electorate sizes had reduced, with Pine Rivers (16758 voters) and Gregory (6723) marking the extremes. However, the effect was that Bjelke-Petersen was retained as Premier of the state on just 20% of the primary vote. The following table shows the figures for the 1972 election: The Labor Party won 33 seats, the largest of any single party; however, since the National/Liberal Coalition had won 47 seats between them, Labor was consigned to Opposition despite winning almost 41,000 more primary votes than the Coalition. Bjelke-Petersen's Country Party had 26 seats to the Liberals' 21; thus, as leader of the senior Coalition partner, Bjelke-Petersen stayed on as Premier. It can also be seen from the above table that the DLP won 7.7% of the vote, but no seats at all: most of these votes flowed through preferential voting away from the Labor Party, further exacerbating the effect of the "Bjelkemander". Other factors The malapportionment favouring country areas helped Labor in 1949 onwards and the Country Party