Pauline Hanson was interviewed on Insiders by Barry Cassidy and he asked her if she was really an admirer of Putin. She replied that she had listened to a speech (presumably a translation) of Putin’s in the Duma and she then said “even the people here in Australia were saying ‘I wish we had a leader like that here; I wish someone would actually stand up and fight for this country’ and that’s what people expect.” She then muddled for a little while, and followed with “I think he is a strong man and I think from what I was reading, about 97% of people in his country respect him as a leader for their nation. Barry Cassidy quipped; “that might be a dodgy poll that one” then Barry asked her about the MH17 disaster and the fact that the missile that shot the passenger plane down was from Russia. After muddling her words yet again she asked “did he push the button?”
Pauline Hanson has the purview of a flea. Her knowledge is so limited and her interpretations so simplistic, that the wish for a ‘strong leader’ is as complex as she gets. Putin is, in her interpretation, a strong leader and the sort of person we need in Australia.
Putin’s Russia is a Kleptocracy run by Putin and his oligarch mates. The judiciary has been deeply compromised, journalists murdered, dissidents harassed, imprisoned or murdered and the free press stamped out. Putin has invaded parts of Georgia, part of the Ukraine, and has consolidated his own power to the extent that he and he alone is allowed to appoint regional governors, extending his presidential term from four to six years, and preventing protests. He has also criminalised LGBT publications, decriminalised domestic violence, and has quite happily bombed the bejesus out of places like Aleppo in Syria in support of the murderous Assad regime.
Pauline thinks such a person would be of benefit to her party of crazies. If someone like Putin were führer in Australia, he would crush Hanson like a cockroach. The only reason her party is allowed to operate is precisely because we do not have a leader like Putin.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/06/vladimir-putin-15-ways-he-changed-russia-world
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/alexander-litvinenko-the-man-who-solved-his-own-murder
