PM says it is right to axe funding for remote Indigenous communities in Western Australia if cost of providing services outweighs benefits

Tony Abbott has shrugged off the decision to close 150 Western Australian remote Indigenous communities, saying the taxpayer should not have to fund people’s “lifestyle choices”.

The WA premier, Colin Barnett, foreshadowed the closure of up to 150 remote communities after the commonwealth said funding for them would soon lapse and fall entirely to the states. The federal government is currently a major contributor to keeping the communities afloat.

Abbott told ABC Radio in Kalgoorlie that Barnett was right to shut down the communities if the cost of providing services outweighed the benefits.

“What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have,” Abbott said during a visit to the historic city on Tuesday.

“If people choose to live miles away from where there’s a school, if people choose not to access the school of the air, if people choose to live where there’s no jobs, obviously it’s very, very difficult to close the gap,” he said.

“It is not unreasonable for the state government to say if the cost of providing services in a particular remote location is out of all proportion to the benefits being delivered,” Abbott said. “Fine, by all means live in a remote location, but there’s a limit to what you can expect the state to do for you if you want to live there.”

Labor’s spokesman on Indigenous affairs, Shayne Neumann, told Guardian Australia that the comments from the man who said he was going to be the prime minister for Indigenous affairs were “deeply disturbing and highly offensive”.

“Does he not understand the connection between land, language and culture?” Neumann asked. “He should apologise [to traditional owners].”

Traditional owners have raised concerns about Barnett’s decision to withdraw funding, saying they are “deeply fearful” of the “devastating” decision.

“We assert the right of people to live in and on their traditional country, for which they have ancient and deep responsibilities. To be talking of relocating people off their traditional country does indeed take us back 50 years in a very ugly way,” a joint statement in November by traditional owners of communities near Fitzroy Crossing, said.