Anthony Albanese has been drawing flack after former Australian of the Year Grace Tame grabbed headlines by turning up at an event hosted by the Prime Minister wearing a rude message for Rupert Murdoch.
The 2021 Australian of the Year wore a T-shirt emblazoned with ‘F**k Murdoch’ as a smiling Mr Albanese and his fiancée Jodie Haydon greeted her at The Lodge in Canberra on Saturday for an Australian of the Year morning tea.
Ms Tame, 30, has long taken issue with how her story has been portrayed in the media, particularly News Corp, which is owned by Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch and his family.
Commentators have slammed the Prime Minister for allowing the crude message to be worn and his response to it.
‘It is a staggering misjudgement of decency and respect for Prime Minister Albanese to greet and smile at Grace Tame wearing this offensive T-shirt,’ conservative education pundit Kevin Donnelly wrote.
‘Unbelievable.’
‘I agree. I feel sorry for the PM, but don’t understand why she was allowed entry when so inappropriately dressed for such an occasion,’ former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett replied.
‘Example eleventy-billion of woke mind virus rotting your brain ladies & gentlemen, Grace Tame, Australian of the Year 2021,’ tweeted former Liberal candidate Katherine Deves.
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
‘Embarrassing, tacky & rude for all concerned.
Conservative pundit Prue McSween was also unimpressed.
‘Grace Tame will be remembered for being a boorish, vulgar, uncouth, undeserving imposter AOY,’ McSween wrote on X.
‘She is representative of a small group of spoilt, entitled and indulged individuals who have contributed very little to the community, but rode the woke political juggernaut.
‘A pathetic piece of work. A stain on Australia Day.’
In front of the cameras Mr Albanese and Ms Tame shared an awkward exchange on Saturday.
‘Thank you for having me back,’ Ms Tame said, having previously visited the Lodge as outgoing Australian of the Year in 2022 when she notoriously gave then prime minister Scott Morrison a contemptuous side-eye look.
‘Reliving memory?’ Mr Albanese asked.
Mr Albanese has copped flack for allowing the offensive clothing item to be worn at the event and his response to it
‘Reliving some trauma maybe,’ Ms Tame replied to a nervously laughing Mr Albanese and Ms Haydon.
Ms Tame told the ABC she wore the shirt to ‘speak truth to power’.
‘This whole awards program is a platform for making change,’ she said.
She said she believed the Prime Minister was ‘quite uncomfortable’ when he saw what she was wearing.
‘I will never lose my passion,’ she said.
Ms Tame also made a quip about her confronting choice.
‘There should be a little clause underneath [the words] with an asterisk that says “not literally”,’ she said.
Even the maker of the T-shirt, writer Dave Milner who founded political commentary website The Shot, expressed surprise to see it worn to a prime ministerial function,
‘That surreal feeling when an Australian of the Year wears your website’s merch to meet the Prime Minister,’ he wrote on X.
Mr Tame also had her defenders on social media.
‘Grace Tame continuing to be iconic when dealing with our PM,’ one tweeted.
‘Grace tame the legend she is,’ another posted on X.
‘Wearing that shirt will make her a target again for some time but she has brought Murdochs disgusting name to the headlines and for that she’s amazing.’
Ms Tame announced this week she had been appointed a brand ambassador for Nike.
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 then-partner Max Heerey arrived, they were greeted by Mr 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.
She later addressed the snub on X, 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.
