In a TV interview four years ago Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott said he felt ‘threatened’ by homosexuality. Last night on 60 Minutes Abbott told the the same journalist that he now is disappointed with himself for that comment.

Abbott, who is ahead in the polls to become the next prime minister at the election in September, said he made the comment because the ‘cohesion of my family was threatened at that time’.

The politician was referring to the coming-out of his sister Christine Forster, who left her husband of 19-years after she fell in love with a woman. Abbott said it was ‘a bit of a shock’ when his sister said she was a lesbian, but they have a close relationship now.

Forster, who was also interviewed on 60 Minutes, laughed off a quote from Abbott when he was a student politician in which he described lesbians as ‘grim-faced, overall-clad, hardened, strident, often lustily embracing counterfeit love’.

Forster said that was ‘a reflection of the times… not a reflection of my brother as a person… he’s changed’.

Interviewer Liz Hayes asked Abbott when he ‘decided gay people were ok’ and he responded ‘when I started to get to know them’.

Despite witnessing the love and commitment of his sister and her partner Virginia Edwards, the leader of the Liberal party still won’t come out in support of same-sex marriage, or even allow his MPs a conscience vote on the matter.

Australian Marriage Equality’s Rodney Croome said Abbott can’t say he truly accepts his sister’s sexuality until he accepts her partner as his sister-in-law.

‘You can’t draw lines around other people’s humanity by accepting who they are but rejecting their fundamental human rights,’ Croome said.

Australia is one of the few countries in the English-speaking developed world that is not progressing with same-sex marriage legislation.

Watch a clip of Abbott on last night’s 60 Minutes here: