An upper house Liberal candidate will not sit in the party room if elected at next week's Victorian state election over links to a controversial church.
Liberal leader Matthew Guy said some of Renee Heath's views were not uncovered through the party's candidate preselection review process.
Ms Heath is a member of the City Builders Church, which has been accused of promoting gay-conversion therapy and being opposed to gay, transgender and reproductive rights.
She was preselected at the top of the party's ballot for the Eastern Victorian Region, almost guaranteeing her a spot in the state's upper house.
In the marginal Liberal-held seat of Hastings, Mr Guy said it was too late to disendorse her as a candidate but she would not sit in the party room if successful at the November 26 poll.
"I haven't got the ability ... to expel someone from the Liberal Party. That's a process in the Liberal Party," he told reporters on Saturday.
Her connections to the church, within which her father has preached against abortion and same-sex marriage, were reported in the lead up to the election and further exposed by The Age on Saturday.
It alleged Ms Heath endorsed comments by Malaysian pastor and City Builders global leader Jonathan David.
The pastor has directed followers to pursue "dominion in every domain", arousing concern the Pentecostal church has ambitions to infiltrate and influence politics and social institutions.
There is no mention of religion on Ms Heath's candidate profile, but she has previously voiced her belief in the separation of church and state.
"I am not my father. To suggest that I am is offensive, as it belittles me," Ms Heath said in a previous statement.
Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam said the Liberal Party must have been aware of Ms Heath's ties to the church.
"They can't play ignorance because they've been told for months that the anti-abortion, transphobic religious right have been attempting to take over their party," she said.
It comes after the Liberals accused the Victorian Electoral Commission of election interference after referring its probe into the party's donor scandal to the corruption watchdog.
Mr Guy would not be drawn on the party's official complaint about the VEC's commentary around the case, which centres on his former chief of staff Mitch Catlin asking a billionaire Liberal donor to make more than $100,000 in payments to his private marketing company.
"I'm not going to go and re-read the whole thing again ... that's for you to read, not me," Mr Guy said.
The aspiring premier insisted he was not questioning the integrity of Victoria's electoral process.
"I have no doubt about the validity of any election in Australia. We have one of the most robust electoral systems anywhere in the world," he said.
Creative Industries Minister Steve Dimopoulos said the Liberal's attack on the VEC had no place in Victorian politics.
"This is the Americanisation of Victorian politics, and we are better than that," he said.
In a response late on Friday, Electoral Commissioner Warwick Gately said the VEC does not change its regulatory approach as election day nears.
