Thought I might be able to do it via cancelling the publish.. as below using !hasIdentity for a new item.. but seems the auto publish calls publish twice.. I get a publish without Identity and then a publish with identity on the same UID from the single record import :-(

    public class ContentPublishing : INotificationHandler<ContentPublishingNotification>
{
    public void Handle(ContentPublishingNotification notification)
    {
        foreach (var node in notification.PublishedEntities)
        {
            if (node.ContentType.Alias.Equals("tenderPage"))
            {
                // new item
                if (node.Name?.Equals("MidEastAntrimBoroughCouncilNI.210623") ?? false)
                {

                    if (!node.HasIdentity)
                    {
                        notification.CancelOperation(new EventMessage("Publishing Cancelled",
                        "Initial import has this flagged as do not display.",
                        EventMessageType.Info));
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        var x = "published";
                    }
                }

            }
        }
    }
}

Aah.. we have notifications in cmsImport.. this did the trick making sure not to AutoPublish

        public void Handle(RecordImportedNotification<IContent> notification)
    {
        var scopeProps = new Dictionary<string, object> { { "@ImportFields", notification.Items } };
        using (_logger.BeginScope(scopeProps))
        {
            if (notification.ProviderAlias == "ContentImportProvider")
            {
                // used to publish dependant on a csv property, AutoPublish should be false
                if (!notification.Item.Published)
                {
                    if (notification.Items["TenderDisplay"]?.ToString()?.Equals("1") ?? false)
                    {
                        _contentService.SaveAndPublish(notification.Item);
                        _logger.LogInformation("RecordImporting PUBLISHED content {primaryKey}", notification.PrimaryKeyValue);
                    }
                }
                _logger.LogInformation("RecordImporting content {primaryKey}", notification.PrimaryKeyValue);
            }
        }
    }

Great you found the answer I was about to reply, use Notifications :-)

is working on a reply...