against Josh Frydenberg for the seat of Kooyong at the forthcoming federal election. Frydenberg received a swing of 8.2% against him as well as the lowest Liberal vote in Kooyong in 76 years. Burnside was also the closest candidate to winning the seat in 90 years, with a two-party preferred vote at 44.3%. In May 2020, Burnside announced he was running for a Greens Senate seat, in a pre-selection held to replace the retiring senator Richard Di Natale. Burnside lost the contest to Lidia Thorpe, who would become the first female Aboriginal Senator for Victoria. Controversy In July 2016, Burnside published a blogpost in which he appeared to support statements made by Shady Alsuleiman, an Australian Muslim cleric. Referring to HIV/AIDS, Alsuleiman had said that, "homosexuality [...] is spreading all these diseases" and that, "if you speak to a doctor, the most terrifying diseases come from [...] sexual activities". Burnside wrote that Alsuleiman's remarks "appear to have medical support" and "were probably accurate as a matter of medical observation". He subsequently received criticism from opinion columnists in The Spectator Australia and the Herald Sun, with Rita Panahi (writing for the latter) accusing him of perpetuating the stereotype that homosexual people are responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS. In a follow-up post, where he referred to critics as either having "an intellectual disability" or "a reading disorder", Burnside said, "I do NOT disapprove of gay people: I think every human being should be able to live their own life, guided by their nature and instincts". Burnside claimed that his comments had been taken out of context, and that he was simply, "responding to a person who had said the Grand Mufti had called for gays to be killed", which was "plainly wrong". Burnside also stated that, "By reporting the truth of the matter, I was not in the least approving hate speech... I do not disapprove of homosexuality." On 8 March 2019, in a debate on Sky News with Victorian Liberal Senator Jane Hume, Burnside announced that he had been a member of a Melbourne-based men's-only club, The Savage Club for 40 years. During the same interview, he also pointed his finger at Hume when she interjected, telling her "not to interrupt" which was seen as a sexist manoeuvre on part of Burnside. On 9 March, Burnside tweeted that he had resigned as a member of the Savage Club, citing that