Ausfag here, I've done a bit of digging into the education of recent Australian politicians.

TL;DR - You are much more likely to get into politics if you studied at a Group of Eight university.

Preface:

There are 43 universities in Australia. The Group of Eight is, unsurprisingly, eight of them: University of Western Australia, University of Melbourne, Monash University, University of NSW, Australian National University, University of Queensland, University of Adelaide and University of Sydney.

Statistics:

Through 2007-2013 Labor went through 49 members in their Cabinet and Outer Ministry. Of these 49 members, only 4 with a university education went to a non Group of Eight university. An additional 4 did not receive a university education.

Hence, 41 of 49 members went to a Group of Eight university.

Through 2013 - present the Liberal party has been in power. Of the 44 members the Liberals have had in their Cabinet and Outer ministry, 26 have gone to a Group of Eight University. 13 went to a non Group of Eight university and 5 did not attend university. Only one did not study at all in Australia, instead going to a university which is part of the LERU (see below).

Every single one of our Prime Ministers since 2007 attended a Group of Eight university. Just for a fun little fact, our previous two Prime Ministers (both of the Liberal Party) received Rhodes scholarships to Oxford.

The Group of Eight works together with a variety of other Education collectives, particularly the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the League of European Research Universities (LERU).

They include Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford.

You can find the full lists of these other universities at https:// en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Association _of_American_Universities & https:// en.wikipedia. org/wiki/League _of_European_Research_Universities

Quite a few of our politicians have studied overseas. Almost always at either AAU or LERU universities.

Also, all but one of the Group of Eight board members have studied at either an AAU or LERU university.

May be nothing, just that these universities are always considered better. Still thought it was worth mentioning.