Why do our political parties treat voters as if they are all dumb? Surely we deserve better than l.c.d. (lowest common denominator) politics?

Haven’t we moved on from the times when the mantra of the political parties was that the only way to win votes was by appealing to the hip-pocket nerve?

Three years ago, the ANU conducted its regular (since the 1980s) in-depth post-election survey of voters, some of the results provided some information used in the Liberal Party’s post-mortem of its performance in that election.

One of the key findings was that “age and education were the two key areas driving Labor’s path to victory” and “where the Coalition lost the most support in the election”. Roughly a third of voters under 55 and of those who had completed year 12 at school and who voted for the Coalition in 2019, did not vote for them in 2022.

The Liberal Party review focused more on the loss of support for the party from women — who would have made up much of those two groups specified by the ANU — than people under 55 and voters with educational qualifications.

Not that the Liberal Party appears to have done much since then (and certainly not during this election campaign) to try to revive its fortunes among women voters of any age or educational level.

The major parties have tried, but been largely unable, to attract the support of the youngest voters. The Greens have attracted their votes, as have independents and smaller parties on the left and right.

Little attention seems to have been paid, however to the other, partially overlapping demographic, based on education.

The ANU study singled out the very large group of voters with year 12 qualifications. That hasn’t changed significantly over time as a proportion of the voting population – at least not compared with those who have completed a university degree.

What has changed is the proportion of the population with university degrees and related qualifications.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of people — mostly voters — with university degrees and other related qualifications more than doubled in the 21st century – and going back 30 years, almost trebled. To be specific: in 1995 just 11.9% of the Australian population held a bachelor’s level degree or above; in 2000, that had reached 15.7% while in 2023 it was 32%.

Two years ago, in the 25-34 age group, just more than 40% of men, and more than 52% of women, held a bachelor’s degree or above. The figures for the 35 to 44 age group were marginally higher for men and lower for women. In the 65 to 74 group the overall proportion (men and women) was slightly above 20%.

Yet, it seems that the more educated the electorate, the less willing are politicians (and/or their party controllers) to trust them to judge the policies they propose, and what they will cost.

Until this year, electors were being given only days or a week or two to consider what the major parties were offering at their official campaign openings. At least this year, those events preceded, but only just, the time when polling was opened.

A generation ago, campaign launches were the highlight and marked the beginning of election campaigns, and all the important policies were revealed. Voters were actually encouraged to consider rival offerings and debates about how much better or worse off they would be if they voted for one or the other.

Now, a party’s estimate of the costs of its promises are held back so that its opponents are given the least possible opportunity of challenging them. Voters don’t have a hope of evaluating them in any meaningful way. Trust one, or the other, or, more likely, neither.

There is one way in which the Liberals and Labor have recognised the increase in educational standards of the electorate. When Peter Dutton became Liberal leader he adopted a strategy which effectively conceded much of the former Liberal heartland to the Teals, or even Labor. His policies were directed at getting Howard’s battlers in outer working class suburbs on board with the Liberals. He appeared to give up on the young, educated voters who were shifting to the left and voting for the Greens, for independents and, to a lesser extent, Labor.

His housing policies and the petrol excise cut are directed at people in those outer suburbs.

On the negative side, he rejected both Labor’s plan to reduce HECS/HELP debts and its promise of free TAFE courses. Yet, across Australia about 16,000 people in each electorate have student debts they are paying off, and that number is several thousand higher in many marginal electorates – for example, just above 18,000 in Dutton’s electorate.

Sixty years ago, it was one of the proudest boasts of Sir Robert Menzies that he had initiated Commonwealth funding to expand Australia’s university system. These days the party he founded seems attracted to the Trump policy of reducing the funding for universities and controlling their activities.

On the other hand, Labor is appealing, via the hip-pocket nerve, to the increasing number of voters who have passed through the university system.