Page "Electoral system of Australia" Paragraph 24

All the colonial legislatures before Federation, and the federal parliament after it, saw country districts allocated more representation than their populations merited.

This was justified on several grounds: that country people had to contend with greater distances and hardships and thus deserved greater representation ; that country people ( and specifically farmers ) produced most of the nation's real wealth, and thus deserved greater representation ; and that greater country representation was necessary to balance the radical tendencies of the urban population.