Australia's national debate on migration is harming the country's reputation in Asia, the University of Tasmania's vice-chancellor has warned.
"We are creating a generation who think Australia is becoming a closed, fearful, racist place," Rufus Black told a state parliamentary inquiry this morning in Hobart.
"That is not the truth.
"But it is becoming who we are projecting ourselves to be, and that's harming our international relations and probably will in the long run unless we turn this narrative around."
International students help finance Australian research capabilities, UTAS's vice-chancellor says. (Supplied: UTAS)
Professor Black was appearing at a scrutiny hearing into the University of Tasmania's most recent annual report by the government affairs committee of the state parliament's upper house, chaired by independent Rosemary Armitage MLC.
Ten days ago the federal opposition leader Angus Taylor announced the Coalition's new migration policy which included major cuts to net overseas migration, and specifically targeted the number of international students arriving in Australia.
Under the policy, which proposed what Mr Taylor described as "the biggest cuts to immigration in this country's history", the number of temporary migrant visas would be slashed by 650,000 over four years.
The number of international student commencements would be limited to 240,000 a year, down from Labor's current cap of 295,000, and the Coalition policy would abolish temporary graduate visas in the hope of reducing foreign student levels to 25 per cent.
Mr Taylor has also accused universities of selling migration pathways.
One Nation has proposed even deeper cuts to international student intakes, limited to 100,000 a year.
Under the Coalition and One Nation policies, international student numbers would be heavily reduced from current levels. (ABC News: Ebony ten Broeke)
Professor Black said universities could live with the level of foreign student intake allowed by the current federal government, but cuts proposed by the opposition parties would have an enormous economic impact.
"It would be a very, very troubling picture," Professor Black said, because Australia funds research through international students.
"That's the simple truth."
Cuts would impact uni research capabilities, Black says
Professor Black said the large research-intensive universities on the mainland, which provide the bulk of critical research and development in the country, were largely funded by foreign student levels of 40 per cent.
"If you were to cut what would literally be thousands and thousands of them … that is a phenomenally large amount of money,"
he said.
"Not only would you cause thousands of job losses right across the higher education system, you would take vast amounts of research funding that the nation needs out of our system with no clear way in which you would alternatively fund it.
"Now, in a service-intensive economy, which is a knowledge-intensive economy, to basically take out the engine of knowledge creation from the Australian economy, to damage it that badly, that quickly, I think would have generational consequences.
"We all know productivity is a major challenge for the nation. The best driver of productivity is knowledge intensity and high skill.
"So if you take out in a very short period of time, right across the nation, that amount of capacity, it'll take more than a generation to recover from it.
"There's a real need for a lot more attention on the fact that this is the engine of national prosperity and there are now proposals on the table to break it."
Rufus Black says the rhetoric around migration is projecting Australia as "a racist place". (ABC News: Kate Nickels)
Professor Black also warned of the generational harm that could be done to perceptions of Australia in Asia.
"If you talk to international students I think the national debate is really harming Australia in Asia," he said.
"When you talk to those who are working with our students across Asia it is really harming us."
He said Australia is "not being seen as the friendly, welcoming kind of partner that we need to be in Asia, and what really is worrying is this is generational".
"We remember the Colombo program generation, who are still around," he said.
"Their commitment to a long-term partnership with Australia is extraordinary because they saw Australia as a place that was a great partner to the region and supporting them."
The Coalition has been approached for comment.