Universities have accused both sides of politics of using foreign students as “cannon fodder” in a poll-driven exercise to slash migration, risking thousands of jobs and irreparable damage to the nation’s second-most-lucrative export sector.

With the Albanese government and the Coalition pledging to reduce international student numbers in response to concerns over population pressures, Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy says the major parties would never mount such an attack on the mining sector, the country’s largest source of export revenue.