A West Australian councillor has endorsed and congratulated Vladimir Putin on his election win during a bizarre appearance on Russian state television.

In a video published on Russian state media, Port Hedland man Adrian McRae congratulated Mr Putin on his “transparent and comprehensive” victory.

  • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Its mind boggling when a conspiracy theorist blatantly goes along with an authoritarian’s propaganda.

    • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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      8 months ago

      Well, if everybody in the mainstream media tells you that water is wet, 2+2 is 4, vaccines prevent diseases and you shouldn’t eat the silica gel packets that come with products, that’s obviously a coordinated conspiracy to hide some important truth, and calling them on it just reveals you to be a freethinker, unlike all the sheeple who go along with it.

  • NathA
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    8 months ago

    I probably shouldn’t be amused by this, but I am. I find humor in both ends of this story.

    On the Australian end, a small town of 15k people voted in a conspiracy loon to their council. On the Russian end, the most prominent western political entity they could drum up for their propaganda was a dude from a remote outback town who wasn’t even sworn in as local councillor, yet.

    I wonder how the council will react when he does finally get home? I expect he’ll get pounced upon by the media when he lands in Australia. This circus hasn’t run its course, yet.

  • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Wow, such a great and totally legit victory, almost as amazing as trump giving himself two golf championship trophies at his own golf club the other day.

    • Gorgritch_Umie_Killa
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      8 months ago

      That was so laughable. If you ask me he should introduce an orange winners jacket to go alongside his trophies, like pro golf does with the green jackets.

      In fact, he could go one better, introduce an orange jumpsuit. Could be quite the fashion statement…

  • No1
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    8 months ago

    "Hello, is this ASIO?
    Yeah, there’s this guy over in WA that seems pretty, ahh, ‘onside’ with the Russians that you might want to check out.

    Nah, he’s not a spy, or under cover or nothing. He literally was on Russian telly!"

  • Gorgritch_Umie_Killa
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    8 months ago

    What a great choice Port Hedland has made. I am so proud of their decisions that have led them this far.

  • TinyBreak
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    8 months ago

    like, the police or asio or whatever do shit about this stuff, right?!

      • TinyBreak
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        8 months ago

        Supporting a foreign enemy? I don’t know if we’ve actually declared Putin that, but we may as well have by sending equipment to Ukraine.

        • maniacalmanicmania
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          8 months ago

          I don’t know why anyone is downvoting you rather than discussing the issue.

          Heads up that my knowledge about any and all of this is less-than-stellar.

          As far as I know Russia isn’t a foreign enemy and Australia’s support of any nations right to self-determination and independence doesn’t automatically imply a state of war against an occupying or oppressing country or a designation as a ‘foreign enemy’. I don’t even know if the term foreign enemy has been or would be used in any such context but I’m not really into military stuff so who knows (maybe someone reading this perhaps).

          I don’t think Australia declared war on Indonesia or designated it a foreign enemy when troops were sent to East Timor.

          I might be wrong but this knob hasn’t done anything illegal by appearing on Russian TV and praising their elections. He’ll probably get a bit more scrutiny for being a naive tool.

          Whose to say he isn’t a spook and this isn’t some wacky shenanigans to play Russia.

    • Ilandar
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      8 months ago

      What is it you imagine they will “do” about a councillor appearing on TV?

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A West Australian councillor has endorsed and congratulated Vladimir Putin on his election win during a bizarre appearance on Russian state television.

    In a video published on Russian state media, Port Hedland man Adrian McRae congratulated Mr Putin on his “transparent and comprehensive” victory.

    Western leaders have condemned the election  which saw Mr Putin claim a 87.28 per cent share of the vote – as undemocratic, citing widespread voter intimidation and polling conducted in areas of occupied Ukraine.

    Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the result was an “insult to democracy”, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the vote could only be described as “undemocratic”.

    Mr McRae ran as a candidate in the seat of Durack for The Great Australian Party, founded by former WA senator and noted conspiracy theorist Rod Culleton, at the 2022 federal election.

    Resources industry and global affairs commentator Philip Kirchlechner said the town was a place of economic and political significance.


    The original article contains 561 words, the summary contains 158 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!