I think people like Abbott need to take a chill pill... everybody thought it was weird to call unmarried or married women 'Ms' instead of 'Miss' or 'Mrs' 40 years ago, well, it sounds weird to hear someone called Miss now, like on a visit to an outback town in SA, the local Mayor was described to me as a 'good Mayoress'... I nearly fell over backward and wondered what century this town was living in.
Mr Abbott who described female candidates for the Liberal Party as having 'sex appeal' and who gave us the oh so contemporary (not) "What the women of Australia need to think about as they do the ironing". Not to mention describing himself as a 'suppository', a fellow Commonwealth country as 'Canadia' and referring to 'vaccinizing' people.
I agree the suggestion not to say 'guys' is a bit stupid, as it has clearly become a gender neutral word anyway but I don't see all of this as 'political correctness gone mad' as some do... seriously, people will use anything to trot out that expression these days and most would do well to look it up and see what it actually means. It's not what people think.
I think what is much more offensive is the use of vacuous management-speak weasel words like 'in the space', 'leaning in', 'going forward', 'the cohort' and so on.
As for colonisation - it WAS an invasion, that's what it's called when one group arrives and takes someone else's land or nation by force and without compensation. It amuses me that the same people that go on about political correctness insist on the non-use of certain words themselves - because it makes them feel uncomfortable to think the country was stolen (look up 'Terra Nullius'). The place may have turned out well on average for all including many Indigenous people but it was in fact invaded, setting up camp, shooting others and stealing is invasion - otherwise I suggest we start calling someone breaking into your house as 'a home settlement'.