Universities must be “a policy priority instead of a political pawn,” David Lloyd chair of the peak university lobby announces in a speech for the National Press Club to be delivered today.

Professor Lloyd calls on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to “follow the lead and examples of leaders like Menzies and Hawke in their support of, and investment in, universities for the greater good of the Australian nation.”

And they will have a choice at the next election, “between providing bipartisan support and encouragement for higher education or treating universities as political footballs in the electoral game.”

Professor Lloyd points to this week’s announcement of international student quotas from next year as bad for universities and bad for the economy, calling it an “extraordinary intervention,” an attempt to “neutralise the perceived political damage it is suffering from high migration rates.”