Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda has renewed calls for a sensible national conversation on remote Australia after Tony Abbott commented that Indigenous Australians were making "lifestyle choices" to live in remote communities.
But the President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, Ray Jackson, said a sensible conversation on the issue was not possible with the Abbott government.
"There is nothing sensible about people who don't want to listen to the culture,” he said. “Who don't want to listen to the history? Who don't want to know our true way of life?”
Mr Jackson said Tony Abbott was attacking Aboriginal people.
“He terms himself as the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. What he is in fact is the Minister for Aboriginal Despair. All he ever does it do budget cuts and try to force people out of their homes. We are being attacked,” he said.
"There is nothing sensible about people who don't want to listen to the culture."
Senior government ministers have come to the defence of Tony Abbott after the prime minister suggested indigenous Australians were making "lifestyle choices" to live in remote communities.
Mr Abbott is resisting opposition calls he apologise for saying taxpayers couldn't endlessly subsidise people who chose to live far away from schools and jobs.
Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne dismissed the calls as a bizarre and hysterical response to an economic issue.
"There comes a point where the taxpayer has to say how much money can be spent in this community where there is no economic future," he told reporters in Brisbane.
Malcolm Turnbull said attempts to paint Mr Abbott as insensitive to indigenous Australia was a bridge too far.
It was important the issue be discussed thoughtfully and rationally, he said.
"Rather than - as is often the case with the prime minister - that whenever he opens his mouth his critics swoop on him like a pack of forwards onto a bit of loose balls."
Treasurer Joe Hockey said Mr Abbott was "absolutely right" because you could not raise an expectation that the quality of opportunity was available in every part of Australia.
"Some of them say it's part of their tradition, that is their lifestyle, that is the way they live," he told ABC radio.
But Mr Abbott's chief indigenous adviser says living in remote communities is not a lifestyle choice.
"It is not as simple as if someone from Sydney decides to go and have a tree change and live in the bush," Warren Mundine said.
"This is about their life, it's about their very essence, it's about their very culture."
"There comes a point where the taxpayer has to say how much money can be spent in this community where there is no economic future."
Mr Abbott, a day after making the comments, insisted he was simply stating a general principle about the difficulties children from remote communities faced going to school and adults in finding work.
"This is where we have to be a little bit realistic," he said.
"If you or I chose to live in a very remote place, to what extent is the taxpayer obliged to subsidise our services?"
Close the Gap campaign chairman Mick Gooda described Mr Abbott's comments as "unhelpful", adding people in remote communities had been living on their homelands for generations.
"We actually don't have the privilege of making lifestyle choices," the indigenous social justice commissioner said.
Labor and the Greens have demanded Mr Abbott apologise for the comments they've branded as racist and highly offensive.
"He really is a disgrace," opposition indigenous spokesman Shane Neumann said.
