Warren Mundine, a leading campaigner against the Indigenous voice to parliament, appears to have bowed out of the race to fill the Liberal Senate seat vacated by Marise Payne.
After Guardian Australia reported that Liberals considered his candidacy unviable due to his support for treaties with First Nations people and moving the date of Australia Day, Mundine has indicated he will pull out.
“It looks like I am going to be pulling out and I will stay in the business sector,” Mundine reportedly told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Mundine is a former Australian Labor party national president who switched allegiances, contesting the lower house seat of Gilmore for the Liberals in 2019.
Mundine’s bid to replace Payne was backed by the former prime minister Scott Morrison and his centre-right factional ally Alex Hawke.
But he spooked both conservatives and moderates with comments on Sunday noting that “people on my side don’t agree with me on these two issues and that is treaties and that is changing the date”.
Asked whether treaties were more likely if the referendum for an Indigenous voice to parliament failed on 14 October, Mundine told ABC’s Insiders: “Yeah, because then, on 15 October, if it is a no vote, that’s when the real work starts.”
Mundine, who founded the Recognise a Better Way group in opposition to the Indigenous voice to parliament, also reiterated his previously expressed personal support for changing the date of Australia Day from 26 January – despite that being one of the fears raised in the no pamphlet.
On Friday the independent senator Lidia Thorpe said she would welcome working with Mundine on Indigenous treaties in the event of the voice referendum not succeeding, saying she was “glad he’d vocalised” his support for treaty processes.
The former New South Wales transport minister Andrew Constance is considered the frontrunner thanks to support from senior moderates, although no formal decision has been taken by the faction to lock in behind him.
Other potential candidates for the vacancy include: the Catholic Schools NSW chief executive, Dallas McInerney; former NSW Liberal MP Lou Amato; lawyer Pallavi Sinha; the former NSW Liberal vice-president Mary Lou-Jarvis; and James Brown, a former army officer and national security expert.
Liberals believed Jess Collins was also preparing to run, but may focus on a bid to contest the seat of North Sydney.
Earlier in September the federal Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, said Mundine had “contested elections before, he’s obviously a significant contributor to debate” and “would have a very serious claim to make” on the Senate spot.
