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March 11th, 2013 
David Schulberg the 3rd
TONY Abbott doesn’t want to jinx himself by admitting that he is more than likely to be Australia’s next prime minister.
The opposition leader, whose coalition party is well ahead in the polls for this year’s election, told the Nine Networks’s 60 Minutes that he is about to face the “supreme challenge of his life” as he bids to win government from Labor.
“I don’t want to jinx myself by getting too cocky too soon,” Mr Abbott said.
“This is the supreme challenge of my life, and I am so conscious of the responsibility that I carry and so determined not to let down the millions of Australians who would like to see a change of government.”
Mr Abbott, who once trained for the priesthood, said religion would not play a part in how he would govern if he won office.
He said faith was important and had helped shape him as a person.
“But it must never, never dictate my politics,” he said.
Mr Abbott reflected on the now-famous speech by Prime Minister Julia Gillard attacking him as a misogynist.
Tony Abbott fronts up during his interview on 60 Minutes. Picture: Channel 9
“It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t true,” he said.
He said he had said things in the past which he wouldn’t say today, and believed in things that he did not believe now.
“I have changed and I like to think I have grown,” he said.
His views on homosexuality have also changed and he now warmly accepts his sister Christine Forster as a lesbian, after she left her marriage of 19 years to be with her new partner Virginia.
“It came as a bit of a shock when someone who is close to you, who you’ve always thought of in a particular light, tells you that they’re now to be seen in a different light,” Mr Abbott said.
“Nevertheless, I think I was probably reasonably unfazed by it.”
Ms Forster said that when she told her brother about her new relationship he said that life threw up some difficult and sometimes terrible situations for people “but I know that you’re just going to be doing the best you can to deal with that”.
Tony Abbott’s sister Christine Forster on 60 Minutes. Picture: Channel 9
Marriage equality advocates say that if Mr Abbott truly accepts his lesbian sister he will accept her partner as his sister-in-law.
Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome said Mr Abbott accepts his sister is in a same-sex relationship but still opposes same-sex marriage.
“You can’t draw lines around other people’s humanity by accepting who they are but rejecting their fundamental human rights”, Mr Croome said.
Tony Abbott told 60 Minutes he doesn’t want to jinx himself by getting too cocky about the election. Picture: Channel 9
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