I think the article is somewhat one-sided.

Part of the boom related to international students relates to this industry being a backdoor means for those in developing countries to either immigrate to Australia or obtain short term working visas.

If abuses of the system were removed there would be a big fall in the number of overseas students and some of our more dubious institutions would be forced to close.

When I was a child, they had these chewing-gum packs with picture-cards inside. The pictures were random, but not evenly distributed, so one had to buy a lot of them in order to obtain the full series and so I used to spend all my pocket-money on the chewing-gums for the pictures I was collecting. The unwanted chewing-gums went straight to the bin because I never liked it and it's very bad for the teeth (later I found that it also dehydrates the brain).

So let's skip that unhealthy chewing-gum and sell Australian residency directly: it will be a win-win situation... except for this no-gooder who wants to be a minister!

Something needs to be done before our reputation as a provider of quality tertiary education is completely shot. My vet told me that Sydney University is now awarding Vet Science degrees to overseas students who haven't completed the full course - apparently some refuse to do the horse and farm animal component because they say they don't need it, but once they are given the degree there is no way of knowing they have no training in that area and nothing to prevent them treating those animals. But they pay big money so they can buy whatever degree they want.

Keith Suter sees the money that is pouring into the universities via the immigration scam that they are running, but not the effects on academic standards, which don't matter to many of the students, because they are really paying for a visa.

He also ignores the effects on the domestic population of the very high population growth that our politicians are forcing on us, partly through those visas, which is outrunning the ability of the economy to keep up (among other things). House prices have been skyrocketing, as have utility bills, and people in our cities are being forced to put up with more crowding and congestion.

From the latest figures from Roy Morgan Research, 17.6% of the working age population is unemployed or underemployed. It was 20.1% back in June. Jobs such as in accountancy are being kept on the skilled migration list for the sake of the universities, even though there is an oversupply of accounting graduates.

New residents (including students) need the full panoply of infrastructure and government services immediately, roads, schools, hospitals, sewers, power plants, etc. These have to be paid for by existing residents, as it may take decades before the new resident has contributed enough to pay for his share. See this article by the economist Ralph Musgrave on the non-housing costs in the UK, estimated at 30,000 pounds per person as of 2008, and this one by Jane O'Sullivan on the costs in Australia.

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6869/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0270.2011.02125.x/pdf

We need to reverse the Dawkins reforms and turn the universities that were Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs), which were much cheaper because they didn't give advanced degrees or do research, back into CAEs. This would make our tertiary education system affordable again. The number of foreign students could then fall back to traditional levels, and they could expect a good education, but not necessarily permanent residency.

Agree with Divergence, who says it all!
Rhrosty.

Afterthought.
Return the former funding levels to CSRIO, and make them take on the bulk of publicly funded research, given a better record of essential commercialization!?
Rhrosty.