London: A regional West Australian councillor says he has travelled to Russia to speak openly about how free speech is suppressed in Australia and warned he has been persecuted for his views on Vladimir Putin, the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Adrian McRae, a member of Port Hedland Council, doubled down on his praise for Russian democracy ahead of the three-day BRICS summit in Kazan, a city in south-west Russia, telling journalists he has been slurred as being “pro-Putin” for questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and for praising the Russian electoral system.
Adrian McRae, a councillor from Port Hedland, WA, has made multiple appearances on Russian media. Credit: Sputnik News
McRae, who contested the last federal election as a candidate for The Great Australian Party, founded by former WA senator and conspiracy theorist Rod Culleton, in the seat of Durack, previously travelled to Moscow in March to act as an independent observer for the presidential election.
“The reason we are at 11.59pm on the nuclear military conflict clock, it’s primarily because … if the world understood what you know, those of us who dare to look outside the mainstream narrative for information,” McRae told journalists on Tuesday.
“If the world understood both sides of the conflict in Ukraine … and they were able to talk openly and discuss it, then the decency of, I think people all over the world, would not allow their governments to get away with the nonsense narratives that were constantly being spoon-fed through our television sets.”
McRae, whose comments have previously been condemned by Australia’s Ukrainian community and WA Premier Roger Cook, said he had been turned into a villain by Australia’s mainstream media for airing his “informed” opinions, as well for his recent successful council motion, which urged authorities nationwide to immediately stop the use of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The motion passed by the town’s council, based around 1800 kilometres north of Perth, was centred on an unverified study from Canada in 2023 which found “high levels of residual plasmid DNA present in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 modified mRNA vaccine”.
“The fact that we no longer have any sort of semblance of free speech in our country – I have to come here to Russia to talk in a mainstream way because such a thing will never be permitted in Australia,” McRae said.
“Again, the usual smear is I’m pro-Putin, in the hope that this slur will be enough to make anything that I say across Australia be viewed as some sort of conspiracy or lie, which is quite frightening.”
