From side-eye to show stopper as Grace Tame stuns PM

Grace Tame wore a provocative T-shirt when meeting the PM at an Australian of the Year event. Photo: AAP
A provocative act by former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has stolen the limelight – again – at a morning tea with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for recipients of the 2025 awards.
The 2021 winner wore a “F**k Murdoch” T-shirt when she was greeted by Albanese and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, at The Lodge in Canberra on Saturday.
The PM and Haydon smiled and greeted Tame, but there was no visible reaction to the incendiary statement on her shirt.
“[The T-shirt is] clearly not just about Murdoch, it’s the obscene greed, inhumanity and disconnection that he symbolises, which are destroying our planet,” Tame said after the event.
“For far too long this world and its resources have been undemocratically controlled by a small number of morbidly wealthy oligarchs,” she said.
In 2022, the outspoken advocate for survivors of sexual assault also stirred controversy when she attended the same event as the outgoing Australian of the Year.
When Tame and her fiance Max Heerey arrived, they were greeted by then prime minister Scott Morrison and his wife Jenny, who congratulated them on their recent engagement.
But Tame remained stony faced as they posed for photographs, which famously captured her giving Morrison an ice-cold “side-eye” expression.
She later addressed that moment 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 and conform to the visibly rotting status-quo. It’s all of us.”
Tame had been highly critical of Morrison and his government’s response to allegations of sexual assault and toxic workplace culture in federal parliament.
Former football star and coach Neil Daniher was later named Australian of the Year for 2025, recognising his inspiring fight against motor neurone disease and his campaign that has raised millions of dollars in research for a long-awaited cure.
Scientist, industrial chemist and proud Mabuigilaig and Goemulgal woman Doctor Katrina Wruck was named the Young Australian of the Year.
Brother Thomas Oliver (Olly) Pickett AM was been named Senior Australian of the Year.
-AAP