Australia's diplomatic relations with India need to be worked on, says a federal Labor MP whose Melbourne electorate has been the scene of at least one of the attacks.
India's high commissioner to Australia, Sujata Singh, is returning to New Dehli to brief her government officials on Australian government plans to ensure the safety of Indian students.
Government backbencher Kelvin Thomson said it would be "very unfortunate" if attacks on Indian students damaged Australia's diplomatic ties with India.
"The diplomatic relationship is clearly something that we all have to work on," he told reporters in Canberra. "We have to work on it, the Indians have to work on it."
Mr Thomson said he had visited an Indian student who had been knifed during a 2am attack in his Melbourne electorate of Wills.
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"The racial attacks are a source of great concern to me and I'm sure to all Australians," he said.
"It is a dreadful thing and we all have a responsibility to do everything we can to discourage those kind of attacks."
The Indian students have been in a position of risk doing late-night, low-paid jobs, Mr Thomson said.
"That's an unfortunate consequence of the way in which they have been brought to Australia," he said, adding private colleges and migration agents were ripping off the students.
Liberal MP Stuart Robert said Foreign Minister Stephen Smith needed to sit down with the high commissioner.
He urged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to revisit Australia's ban on selling uranium to Indian, which is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
"Mr Rudd's foreign policy is over all the place with India," he told reporters. Canada was already selling uranium to India and the US was considering it, Mr Robert added.
Family First senator Steve Fielding lashed out at Victorian Premier John Brumby for criticising the Indian media's reporting of violence in Melbourne.
"No it's not wise, frankly," he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday, adding all Victorians were concerned about the violence.
"Having a crack at the Indian media, I don't think, is helpful at all.
"We do have a problem in Victoria of Indians being attacked and it needs to be addressed."
