“I SHOULDN’T HAVE done it, Karl.”

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s admitted that winking at an ABC radio host during a phone-in programme was a mistake.

There’s been controversy Down Under this week over a video clip of Abbott allowing himself a vague grin and batting his eyelid slightly as he took a call from a woman who identified herself as ‘Gloria’.

The 67-year-old caller told the Premier she was having to pay extra for medical treatment as a result of his latest Budget.

Abbott’s less-than-appropriate reaction comes as she tells him, “I work on an adult sex line to make ends meet, now that’s the only way I can do it”.

He regains his composure later in the call, and adopts a more sombre ‘listening face’.

“Look, I was looking at Jon Faine, he was smiling at me and I winked back at him,” Abbott told Australia’s Channel Nine. 

“I should’ve been more focused on the caller,” he said, adding “mistakes are always regrettable”.

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