Warren Mundine loses teal target seat preselection as Liberals pick tech executive

Tech executive Gisele Kapterian has overcome an intense lobbying campaign by Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party’s conservative wing to secure preselection for the Sydney seat of Bradfield – a target of the teal movement at this year’s federal election – defeating Indigenous figure Nyunggai Warren Mundine.

Kapterian, who had the support of party moderates, won a majority in the first round of voting, gaining just over 200 votes to Mundine’s 170, while cardiologist Michael Feneley received 16. It was the NSW Liberal division’s largest-ever lower house preselection contest, reflecting the size of branches in the blue-blood territory.

Nyunggai Warren Mundine, Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Liberal candidate for Bradfield Gisele Kapterian.Credit: Dan Peled, Rhett Wyman, James Brickwood

It means the former trade lawyer and senior staffer to Julie Bishop and Michaelia Cash will run as the Liberal candidate against independent challenger Nicolette Boele, who is backed by the teal funding vehicle Climate 200.

The teals are confident of winning Bradfield, a seat held by retiring Liberal MP Paul Fletcher, making it crucial to Peter Dutton’s chances of winning the election due by May. Bradfield covers a wealthy area of Sydney’s north shore, including St Ives and Chatswood.

The preselection race had become a test of the influence of the right-wing establishment within local Liberal branches in blue-ribbon party territory. Former prime minister Tony Abbott and popular frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price both lobbied members to pick Mundine, a strident conservative who has recently called for a rethink on Indigenous Welcome to Country ceremonies.

Abbott spent recent days calling local branch members to encourage them to support Mundine, according to three Liberal sources involved in the preselection. Mundine, the sources said, was going door-to-door meeting with rank-and-file members, an unusual move in a preselection that displayed the intensity of the contest with Kapterian.

Source said the preselection meeting was cordial and respectful, with all candidates asked their positions in policy including nuclear energy.

Mundine’s opponents were worried his candidacy would result in the Liberals losing the seat because his conservative views, and advocacy against the Voice to parliament, may have jarred with voters in the only Liberal seat that voted in favour of the Voice referendum question in 2023.

In a statement, Mundine congratulated Kapterian on her win. “Let’s win the seat,” he said.

Kapterian said in a statement: “Only the Liberals are focused on key issues like housing, supporting small businesses and fighting inflation, that will make lives easier for people across our community – and only by electing the Liberal candidate we’ll be able to put an end to the Albanese Labor government’s economic vandalism.”

Kapterian has long been touted as a parliamentary candidate. She attracted most of her backers from the moderate wing of the party, though her commanding win indicates she also won a substantial number of right-wing votes.

A series of heavy hitters, including former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian and previous treasurer Joe Hockey, had supported Kapterian, who works at tech firm Salesforce. Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley threw her weight behind Kapterian.

Ley said after Kapterian’s win that Kapterian was a “senior exec at the cutting edge of the tech industry … [and a] first-class example of Australia’s multicultural success story”.

“Vote for this amazing woman!” Ley said.

Boele won 20 per cent of the primary vote at the 2022 federal election, cutting Fletcher’s margin to 4.5 per cent. She is expected to receive far more money from Climate 200 at this election.

A redistribution that abolished the seat of North Sydney has moved the suburb of Chatswood into Bradfield and cut the Liberals’ margin to an estimated 2.5 per cent.

Mundine was national president of the Labor Party in 2006-07 but quit the organisation in 2012, saying it was “not the party [he] joined”.

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