On Saturday, former Australian of the Year and childhood sexual abuse survivor and advocate, Grace Tame attended the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards morning tea at The Lodge in Canberra.
She wore a t-shirt reading, plainly: “Fuck Murdoch”.
The media took her photo as she stood next to the PM Anthony Albanese and his fiancee Jodie Haydon. They penned quick stories. There was much commentary across social platforms about Tame’s protest and whether it was the “right” time and place for her to have made it.
Albanese weighed in, criticising Tame’s “disrespectful” actions and suggesting she had taken focus away from the past year’s recipients and new finalists.
It was, excuse my Swahili, a complete crock of shit.
On the one hand, when it suits the government’s agenda, an individual like Tame is propped up; the poster child of seismic social change. Her power and courage in bringing the issue of childhood sexual assault to the fore and opening up about her own profound trauma has, and will continue to help, so many Australians.
Her fearlessness in advocating, protesting, causing ruptures is, in effect, exactly why she was selected as Australian of the Year in 2021.
Choosing to wear this t-shirt was tied to this. Her protest was wholly personal. A horrific experience as a child was made ineffably worse by the Murdoch press. Her trauma was, and continues to be, exploited for profits.
And let’s be straight: It is not so much the public protest that the media and our government are rattled by in this instance, but the tenets of what this protest is. Failing to criticise Tame for her (frankly excellent) attire would have been shaky ground for a government utterly beholden to Murdoch’s media circus–even when they’re rarely rewarded for such shameless loyalty.
It was a disappointing response from our Prime Minister, who stands to gain from demonstrating a backbone at this point in time.
As for ordinary Australians who are tired of a media monopoly with minimal scrutiny? Grace Tame’s protest was roundly welcome. She wore what most of us are feeling. She took a public stand that most of us don’t have the platform to do. It’s what we’ve long admired about her.
She wore a message and she started a conversation. That’s the extent of it.
You tell me, which part of that is so grossly disrespectful?