Grace Tame has nabbed the limelight at the 2025 Australian of the Year morning tea with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, three years on from her infamous ‘side-eye’ meeting with Scott Morrison.
The 2021 Australian of the Year wore a T-shirt emblazoned with ‘F*** Murdoch’ on the front as she was greeted by a poker-faced Mr Albanese and his fiancée, Jodie Haydon, at The Lodge in Canberra on Saturday.
The 30-year-old, who just this week stepped down from her foundation and announced she had been appointed a brand ambassador for Nike, has long taken issue with how her story has been portrayed in the media, particularly Newscorp.
In 2022, the outspoken advocate for survivors of sexual assault stirred controversy when she attended the same event as the outgoing Australian of the Year.
When Ms Tame and her partner Max Heerey arrived, they were greeted by then-PM Morrison and his wife Jenny, who congratulated them on their recent engagement.
But Ms Tame remained stony faced as they posed for pictures, which captured her giving Mr Morrison an ice-cold ‘side-eye’ expression that quickly sparked a flood of memes.
2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame wore an incendiary T-Shirt to this year’s morning tea event with Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon
She later addressed the snub on Twitter, commenting that the survival of abuse culture ‘is dependent on submissive smiles, self-defeating surrenders and hypocrisy’.
‘What I did wasn’t an act of martyrdom in the gender culture war,’ she wrote.
‘It’s true that many women are sick of being told to smile, often by men, for the benefit of men. But it’s not just women who are conditioned to smile…To conform to the status quo, it’s all of us.’
Ms Tame had been highly critical of Mr Morrison and his government’s response to allegations of sexual assault and toxic workplace culture in federal parliament.
The winners of the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards will be announced at a ceremony in Canberra on Saturday.
More than 30 finalists are in the running to be named Australian of the Year, Senior Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year and Australia’s Local Hero.
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