The ongoing public tantrum that is the Tony Abbott Hurt Feelings Tour 2015 (extended despite popular demand) has erupted again in the safe Abbott-friendly space of 2GB.

And he was rolling out the classic hits and memories, starting with how unemployed and disabled people are a bunch of lazy scroungers.

"​If people are doing the best they can for themselves and for their families and it is literally impossible for them to find work, fair enough," he said of his government's attacks on people on the pension. "We were far too ready to put people on the [disability support pension], with bad backs, a bit of depression and so on. These are not permanent conditions… This idea that you can be unemployed on benefits in a town where you can't get fruit pickers, it's just wrong."

It was part of the popular and imaginary argument that there are thousands of jobs out there and anyone unable to find them is choosing to avoid them, rather than acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, people with no money might find it tricky to pick up and move temporarily to places where there's short-term casual labour.