‘Only dictatorships pretend to be perfect’: Albanese gives fiery defence of democracy after US election

‘A fierce contest can be a good thing, as long as it’s a contest about substance’, PM tells global democracy conference in Sydney

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The prime minister who vowed before the last election to herald a “kinder, gentler parliament” has now hailed Australia’s rowdy, robust and combative style of political debate as proof of a functioning democracy, warning “only dictatorships pretend to be perfect”.

In remarks to a global democracy conference in Sydney a day after the United States returned Donald Trump to the presidency eschewing warnings about his autocratic style, Anthony Albanese suggested the adversarial tendencies of the Westminster political system were “a virtue, not a flaw”.

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