"No Rudd didn't keep the levels reasonable, he's the one who opened the floodgates to international students with easy routes to permanent visas via dodgy university courses."
Most of the dodgy courses arose well after Rudd.
Overseas students: immigration policy changes 1997–2015 – Parliament of Australia (aph.gov.au)
"Concern about declining numbers of overseas students coming to Australia following the reforms of the Rudd-Gillard Government, and in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, resulted in reforms designed to restore confidence in the program and encourage overseas student enrolments, but these were largely limited to the university sector.The Abbott Government announced soon after being elected that it intended to encourage increased enrolments in the Vocational Education (VET) sector and restore confidence in Australia’s international education sector as a whole. While it has begun implementing further reforms designed to boost the VET sector, Australia has not seen a return to the explicit linkages between the overseas student program and permanent skilled migration that were a feature of the Howard era"
extract from the above link.
