Grace Tame reveals she was targeted for comments about Pauline Hanson interview

Australian of the Year and sexual assault survivor Grace Tame has revealed what happened after she offered some advice to Jess Rowe.

Australian of the Year Grace Tame has revealed how a “really measured” tweet to journalist Jessica Rowe landed her in the sights of trolls, who targeted her online.

If you missed it last week, Rowe promoted a one-on-one chat with Pauline Hanson about the One Nation leader’s “dark times”.

It was met with condemnation from a number of high-profile people including Ms Tame, who tweeted to Rowe that “this is how discrimination and hate is subtly enabled and normalised”.

“Pauline doesn’t need help to be heard, but those whose oppression she’s both driven and reinforced do,” she posted.

Rowe responded: “I don’t support Pauline Hanson — I never have. It was not my intention to normalise her views, which we don’t talk about in the podcast. I’ve had many disagreements with her which are on the record. Kindness is at the heart of who I am & it would never be my intention to spread hate.”

But Ms Tame replied: “Jess, I respect you. In my view, you’re wrong here.

Rowe later acknowledged the feedback, deleted the tweet and erased the audio of the interview from a streaming platform.

But the feedback was met with disgusting comments from trolls on social media.

This is how discrimination and hate is subtly enabled and normalised.

Everyone’s entitled to their own views, but not all views should be valorised by promoting their source.

Pauline doesn’t need help to be heard, but those whose oppression she’s both driven and reinforced do. https://t.co/47neuswec7

— Grace Tame (@TamePunk) September 29, 2021

In an interview with Marque Lawyers on Instagram on Tuesday, Ms Tame said she was shocked by what followed.

“You can’t separate someone like Pauline Hanson from her politics so I raised this issue that it’s quite dangerous because it normalises hatred, it normalises bigotry,” she explained.

“I thought I made my point in a really measured way. It wasn’t designed to incite hatred against anyone, not even Pauline Hanson.

“But naturally it was misinterpreted by a lot of people and I’ve copped a lot of hatred. I’ve been called the C-word more times than I can count by people sending me private messages and commenting publicly on my social media.

“I was just baffled. I thought I was being really quite reasonable.”

She said the attacks led to a moment of clarity sparked by a conversation with investigative journalist Nina Funnell, whose groundbreaking #LetUsSpeak campaigns with news.com.au led to law reforms across the country and brought Ms Tame into the public spotlight.

“She said, ‘Grace, you’re thinking that just because you’re acting in good faith, everyone else is as well,” Ms Tame said.

“You’re seeding too much credibility to a very narrow minded group.”

In the interview on Tuesday, Ms Tame also took a shot at Prime Minister Scott Morrison for comments he made earlier in the year about abuse survivors needing to speak up.

“There are a lot of things that are wrong with that,” she said.

Australian of the Year Grace Tame spoke about her comments to journalist Jessica Rowe on Instagram Live on Tuesday.

“The first thing that stands out to me is the blatant hypocrisy. This is a man who did everything in his power to silence Brittany Higgins … down to trying to fly her to Perth.

“And the same thing with Julia Banks, trying to silence these women who had anything to say that could’ve possibly contradicted his PR strategies.

“There’s this really unhelpful sort of victim blaming theme of putting the onus on the person who has already suffered incredible trauma which then makes them … disempowered and full of fear and self doubt.

“Putting the onus on these people to solve the problem that they didn’t create. Yes, we should be welcoming the stories of survivors. But we shouldn’t be forcing anybody to come forward who doesn’t want to come forward.

“It’s about changing the attitudes towards survivors and the whole community is responsible for what we do next.”

Ms Tame, who is using her platform to support survivors of sexual abuse and push for real change, was this week named one of 10 most culturally powerful people in Australia by The Australian Financial Review.