Chair of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council Warren Mundine told ABC Radio National that the

"... people are actually living on their homelands and it affects a lot of things; it affects their cultural activities; it affects their native title; it affects a number of areas.” 

The people who face and fear resettlement haven’t suddenly received a superannuation lump sum and can plan to settle somewhere on the coast, buy an apartment or a semirural property, or set off to Europe — this is the mischief Mr Abbott tries to convey. Many have faced a lifetime without adequate government services and now face the final obliteration of the profound spiritual and cultural ties to the land they live on.

Mr Abbott’s constituency has little patience with the policy of Closing the Gap.Perhaps that is why he had to crank it up a bit. A lifestyle choice, as it was instigated in a number of health issues such as smoking, tries to mitigate social conditions as primary cause and place the emphasis on the individual, who is usually the victim of appalling disadvantage.

Yet in his Closing the Gap speech in February, Mr Abbott said:

“Until Indigenous people fully participate in the life of our country all of us are diminished.”

Free marketeers loathe government funding – although they are usually very happy recipients of it when the opportunity arises – and consider Aboriginal advocacy for improved services for Indigenous people as wasteful and ineffective. They call on Indigenous people to "participate in the life of our country" without once acknowledging the cultural and spiritual dimension ofcountry. The only value placed by free marketeers upon this unique understanding of lifestyle and land, the environment and how it relates to Indigenous identity is one of shallow tokenism.

read more: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-lifestyle-choice-comment-was-no-gaffe,7490

Independent senator Glenn Lazarus is demanding Tony Abbott apologise for describing the Senate as "feral" and warned the Prime Minister's comments may hamper negotiations on future legislation.

In a fiery exchange during the Senate question time, Attorney-General George Brandis suggested the Senate was overreaching in its role, behaving like a "House of Refusal" instead of a "House of Review".

Mr Abbott made the "feral" remark in the Coalition party room on Tuesday, telling MPs the government was dealing with a "feral" Senate when it came to passing budget measures.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/chaotic-scenes-in-the-senate-as-glenn-lazarus-demands-tony-abbott-apologise-for-calling-senators-feral-20150318-1m23mx.html

Lazarus seems to be on the scent of a turd that will be sorry... And for those who may think I am rude, offensive and impolite, may I remind you people that Tony Turdy INSULTS my intelligence (and probably yours) every time he opens his trap...

Mr Abbott, we learn, was pumping out metadata when he was a journalist years before journalists used the internet. He was spinning stories in hyperspace before we knew it existed.

We know this because the Prime Minister told us so on Wednesday.

"In the days when I was a journalist," he revealed to seekers of truth, "there were no metadata protections for journalists and if any agency, including the RSPCA or the local council, had wanted my metadata, they could have just gone and got it on authorisation. Look, I was perfectly comfortable as a journalist."

Mr Abbott was a journalist in the second half of the 1980s. He quit the craft in 1990.

The first commercially available internet web browser, Netscape Navigator, appeared in 1994. Internet Explorer appeared in 1995. And even then, a computer with access to the internet was scarcer in the Australian news industry than a sober lunch.

Mr Abbott, in short, had managed to bend time.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/tony-abbott-proves-hes-the-new-einstein-metadata-bends-time-20150318-1m2emy.html

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Gus: on the bullshit time/crap horizon this is called a giant black arsehole...

"So I was perfectly comfortable as a journalist."

He said the new measure — which will force agencies to get a warrant to access journalists' metadata — was an "unprecedented additional level of protection".

But head of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) Paul Murphy said the Prime Minister's personal experience was not relevant.

"For Tony Abbott to compare his time as a journalist to now is ludicrous," he told the ABC.

"Agencies are now given access to an unprecedented amount of data about our lives and work.

"The volume and type of data now available was beyond imagining in 1980."

The MEAA argues the legislation, which mandates a two-year retention period for phone and internet records, is an attack on press freedom.

"None of the amendments being proposed to the legislation recognise or protect the vital role of journalists and whistleblowers in a healthy democracy," Mr Murphy said.

"The legislation does not offer protection. It enables persecution and prosecution."

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has responded to concerns from the journalists' union, saying "requests for accessing a journalist's metadata are rare".

MPs have begun debating the legislation, which the Government hopes will be passed by the end of next week when Parliament will rise for six weeks.

However, Labor frontbencher David Feeney said Opposition support remains subject to "outstanding issues", including a parliamentary hearing on the legislation scheduled for Friday.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten earlier this week wrote to the Prime Minister offering Labor's backing to pass the legislation by next week, subject to an amendment aimed at protecting journalists' sources.

In exchange for that amendment, Mr Abbott wanted Labor's agreement to scrap Friday's planned parliamentary hearing.

But shadow defence minister David Feeney told Sky News that Labor wants that to go ahead.

"We think that should go ahead, that's a useful thing to do. The Government obviously would like to see that cancelled," he said.

Most impressive. Abbott the journalist!... Has anyone read any of "his" articles? Where they in line with "women do the ironing" and promising B A Santamaria style of salvation? Or were they about economic matters which Turdy has no clue about? No wonder he was comfortable about "his metadata" then, since there would not have been very inspiring, though he might feel embarrassed should someone exhume his "articles", which would have mostly been "opinion pieces" — NOT JOURNALISM...

Tell the Labor Party to reject the thingus holus bolus... The metadata is an idiocy (possibly concocted by Labor when it was in power but resurrected with a sting by the CONservative Turds)

Jewish Labor MP Michael Danby walked out of Question Time, and another three were ejected, after the Prime Minister compared the Opposition Leader to Nazi propagandist and Hitler offsider Joseph Goebbels.

Tony Abbott was referring to the Opposition's budget policies and called Bill Shorten "the Dr Goebbels of economic policy".

There was immediate protest from Opposition benches as Mr Abbott repeatedly told Parliament "I withdraw, I withdraw".

"I do withdraw and I do apologise for using that phrase," Mr Abbott said.

In the uproar Labor frontbencher Mark Dreyfus - who is also Jewish - was kicked out by Speaker Bronwyn Bishop.

That prompted Labor backbencher Mr Danby, who is a prominent member of Melbourne's Jewish community, to rise to his feet and declare that "if he's out, I'm out over this".

He walked out of the chamber in disgust.

He told the ABC that the Prime Minister "can slag us as much as he likes but it is silly to use an example of the ultimate evil in politics".

"He's the Prime Minister - he is supposed to have standards," Mr Danby said.

Another two Labor MPs were expelled in the subsequent melee.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-19/jewish-labor-mp-walks-out-after-tony-abbotts-goebbels-comment/6332910

Obviously, Bronwyn Bishop is not Jewish...