Port Hedland councillor-elect and ex-Great Australia candidate Adrian McRae in bizarre Russian TV appearance

Newly elected Port Hedland councillor and former Great Australia Party candidate Adrian McRae has appeared in a bizarre video on Russian state-owned TV, congratulating Vladimir Putin on his election victory and hailing it as the most transparent in the world. Mr McRae, who was elected to the Town of Port Hedland council earlier this month and is yet to be sworn in, flew to Russia to participate as an election scrutineer after being invited by Russian Ambassador to Australia Alexey Pavlovsky. Post-election, footage published by Channel One State News showed Mr McRae, the former Great Australia Party candidate for Durack in the 2022 election, congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin on his victory. “Can I please pass on sincere congratulations to Mr Vladimir Putin,” Mr McRae said. “In my memory, the world has never seen such a transparent and comprehensive victory as what we saw here over the last three days. President Vladimir Putin won 87.8 per cent of the vote, the highest result in Russia’s post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster the Public Opinion Foundation. The result means Mr Putin, 71, easily secured a new six-year term that would enable him to overtake Joseph Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years. Speaking to the North West Telegraph from Russia, Mr McRae said he could “write for hours” on why he saw the election process as “the most ridiculously over-the-top transparency”. “For example, they have interactive 3D cameras in every voting booth in the country, which any Russian (or foreign) person can go online, move the interactive cameras around, rewind the camera, and watch every action of every person in the voting stations,” he said. “This footage is still available to this day, for folks to go back and watch.” “I watched and saw Vladimir Putin obtain almost 80 per cent of the paper vote in his least friendly district. I even kept a certified copy of those results and the protocols that were followed, that are required to pass those results up the chain of command. “Having run as a candidate in both Australian Federal and Local Government elections, as well as volunteering as a scrutineer for national elections and referendums, I was truly shocked by their transparency, their professionalism and their willingness to be challenged on every aspect of their voting system, and indeed their democracy at large. “It leaves the Australian system in its wake.” Speaking on March 18, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the election was “not something that met “any kind of benchmark of being free or fair”. “. . . nothing about the election outcome was unpredictable because Putin had closed the political space, had locked up political opponents,” Mr Sullivan said. “Some of his political opponents had tragically died. And so, there was nothing free or fair about this election, and the outcome was preordained.” Closer to home, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade released a statement that read: “These elections were not free, fair, inclusive or credible.” “They took place in the context of the Russian Government’s longstanding crackdown on the freedom of opinion and expression, and on opposition figures, civil society, independent journalists, human rights defenders and anti-war voices,” the statement said. Mr McRae was the Durack electorates’ sixth choice to take the seat, garnering just 3.1 per cent of the vote in the 2022 Federal election. Town of Port Hedland chief executive Carl Askew said Mr McRae was travelling in a personal capacity. “The town does not comment on the personal activities of elected members,” he said. “All elected members are subject to the town’s code of conduct.” Post-election, images surfaced of Mr McRae receiving an award from Russian presidential opposition candidate Sergey Baburin, which Sydney-based Sputnik News, a Russian-owned news platform, correspondent Simeon Boikov said was “for his efforts in strengthening friendship between Australia and Russia”. Mr McRae did not respond to questions about the death and imprisonment of Mr Putin’s political adversaries, and whether it had any impact on his perception of transparent and fair elections.