Australian universities must reassess revenue streams to remain viable

This article does nothing more to further the discussion about academia than promote the neo-liberal school of thought that everything should be commodified.
In regards to education and research, this simply does not add up.
Over the course of history, education and research have, for the majority of the time, been funded on a not-for-profit base, because their aim is not to make a profit. Their aim is for a better understanding of the world around us, and through this better understanding to improve living conditions for anyone and anything on this planet. Much research has created understanding and solutions that were not comfortable or profitable for companies that funded it, but which was priceless for society as a whole nonetheless. If we stick to the idea that research must be funded for profit, we will loose swathes of fields of fundamental research and tinkering around the edges that would benefit society as a whole.
Apart from that, if we are discussing why it is so difficult for academics to get research funded, we must first and foremost look at the current government consistently spending less and less on its national research budget over the last decade. The mentioned issue of the plunge in international student numbers both on and off-campus since the pandemic would be far less severe if the current government had not made international student revenue a required income stream in the first place because of reduced government research expenditure.