De Heer said he had read shortly before the awards a report that Mr Abbott, in backing a West Australian government plan to close up to 150 remote Aboriginal communities, said that it was not the taxpayers' job to subsidise people's "lifestyle choices". Winner at the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards ... David Gulpilil in Charlie's Country. The ABC has reported that Mr Abbott, speaking in Kalgoorlie, said it was up to the state to decide what services it would deliver and where. "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," he said. "In order to get kids to school and adults to work, you've got to have a school. 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.

"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, 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." Tony Abbott: his comments have been branded "offensive". Credit:Edwina Pickles A fired-up de Heer said that to make those comments about the residents of remote communities was "profoundly misunderstanding" of Aboriginal culture and economic reality. "It's hypocritical that our Prime Minister pretends to be the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and has so little understanding of what it is to be on country and that there is no choice involved," he said. "There are no jobs so they earn nothing. So they get welfare and they pay twice as much for their food as we do. Welfare is not enough here, let alone there. So they have a choice to move somewhere else?"

De Heer said David Gulpilil, the acclaimed actor whose struggles with alcohol, drugs and the law inspired the fictional central character in Charlie's Country, had been forced to live in Murray Bridge outside Adelaide. "He can't afford to live in Darwin and somebody will put him up in Murray Bridge. That's a lifestyle choice? Yeah. Thank you Mr Abbott."