Changing migration policies is hindering Australia's chances of attracting the world's best and brightest minds, industry leaders are warning.
Builders, aged-care workers and educators fronted a parliamentary probe into skilled migration in Canberra on Friday, the morning after Immigration Tony Burke announced long-awaited reforms to student visas, working holiday-makers and over-stayers.
Chopping and changing arrangements only exacerbated a core problem, the committee was told.
"It's the boom and bust cycle on all things, we need some certainty and stability," Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy said.
"There's been incentives ... they've come and gone."
Australia also lacked a clear definition of "regional" so it knew where to steer migrants to, Mr Sheehy said.
"At some point, the Gold Coast was a region, Adelaide was a region," he told the inquiry.
"The more we continue to tinker with it, the less attractive we become ... it sends a terrible signal to the outside world."
As part of the changes, Labor will ban international students and graduate visa holders from bringing their families with them, with small carve-outs for PhD students the university sector argued neglected the needs of smaller regional unis.
"If secondary visa holders are going to be restricted, we believe that there will be a case for regional students studying at regional campuses to be excepted," Regional Universities Network representative Graham Brown told the MPs.
Those outside the big smoke are also trembling at the prospect of working holiday-makers drying up under the proposed reforms.
Backpackers will now have to enter a lottery for a shot at one of the 45,000 second-year working holiday visas - down from 57,000 today - with third-year visas slashed from 31,000 to just 5000.
"We will have fruit rotting on the vines," Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff said on Friday in response to the changes.
"If you don't pick the fruit, there are no jobs in packing, no jobs in transport, no jobs in marketing, it must be reversed otherwise it will destroy the … job opportunities of young people."
A total overhaul of skilled visas was needed, according to opposition migration spokesman Jonathon Duniam, who said the coalition's fully fleshed-out policy was still weeks away.
"There needs to be a complete reformation of the skilled visa list ... in line with actual need in this country," he told ABC TV.
"The visa hopping, which they've attempted to make some remedies to, is a massive concern, we don't think they've gone far enough on that."
