Sarah Williams, the 23-year-old activist who called Albanese a liar
A 23-year-old law student and sexual violence campaigner accused the Prime Minister of lying and misogyny. Here’s what really went down.
On Sunday, a series of rallies organised by a group called What Were You Wearing took place across Australia – in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and a handful of regional areas.
They were about domestic and family violence – and violence against women.
Chants included: “Say it once, say it again, there’s no excuse for violent men.”
It was in Perth that the atmosphere was particularly charged – there, within hours of the rally, a man was charged with the murder of 30-year-old mum Erica Hay.
She was the 27th woman to be killed in similar circumstances this year.
At one of the rallies – on the expansive lawn in front of Parliament House in Canberra – Anthony Albanese took the microphone.
“We are here tonight to demand that governments of all levels must do better, including my own, including every state and territory government,” the Prime Minister said.
“We need to change the culture. We need to change attitudes. We need to change the legal system.”
What happened at the rally in Canberra?
The declaration was met with cheers, jeers, and tears.
He was heckled by a handful of attendees as he rattled off the government’s 10 year, $2.3-billion gendered-violence action plan.
“We now have ten days’ paid domestic violence leave — I agree it’s not enough. I said that, we need to do more. It’s not just government’s problem. It’s a problem of our entire society,” he said.
And then things took an unexpected turn, when Albanese told the crowd he and Minister for Women Katy Gallagher had been refused the chance to speak.
“We did ask to speak, myself and Katy. And were told that that wasn’t possible and that’s fine. I respect the organisers right to do that,” the Prime Minister said.
Standing next to Albanese was rally organiser Sarah Williams, of sexual violence advocacy organisation What Were You Wearing, said: “That’s a full-out lie,” and burst into tears.
Who is Sarah Williams?
Williams said her experience as a survivor had been diminished by Albanese’s actions.
Williams is a law student at the University of Newcastle, and describes herself as a proud Awabakal woman.
She is founder and chief executive of What Were You Wearing Australia, a not-for-profit organisation fighting to end sexual violence.
Williams’ advocacy has included a petition demanding the NSW government introduce mandatory drink-spiking education for venue and bar staff, and establishing sexual assault ‘safe spaces’ at music festivals.
WWYW offers training for bar and venue staff in drink spiking, and sells merchandise including T-shirts reading ‘I believe you’ and ‘F. k the justice system’.
Williams accused the Prime Minister of initially declining an invitation to speak, and then – once at the rally and finding himself being heckled by the crowd – insisting on taking the microphone.
On social media after the event, Williams accused Albanese of abusing his power by “aggressively stating”: “I’m the Prime Minister of the country, I run this country.”
Williams said Albanese had lied – and that before the rally, the organisers had approached both Katy Gallagher and Anthony Albanese’s offices offering for them to speak.
Williams said: “I heard that he wanted to speak. And I immediately thought, well, he wants to speak to save himself here and probably make myself look bad. So I said to the audience, so I said to the audience, do we want him to speak? I wanted the audience to choose, not him. And whilst I was saying that, he said behind me, which many people heard, I’m the Prime Minister, I’ve run this country.”
Did Albanese say ‘I run this country?’
On Monday morning – having called an emergency national cabinet meeting for Wednesday – the Prime Minister addressed the accusation on Network Seven’s Sunrise breakfast program:
Host Natalie Barr asked: “So she said you’re on the stage with her and there was confusion about, you know, who was going to speak. And then you said behind her on the stage, ‘I’m the Prime Minister and I run the country?’ Did you say that?”
Albanese: “Well, that, I’m not going to get into, you know, that that sort of, divide.”
Barr: “Well, she’s come on national TV and she’s saying that on radio and TV around the country today. That, unfortunately, is the message that’s being sprouted. And we know it’s unfortunate, but you can put it to bed now.”
Albanese: Well, that, people including Channel 7 were there for the recording of everything that went on. So you were all there. So the media were all around. They heard everything that was said there.”
If the Prime Minister didn’t say those words, why not just deny it?
The Australian’s federal politics reporter Sarah Ison has been digging through the reaction.
Ison says Albanese’s oblique response is a deliberate choice, after he stumbled at the rally by declaring he hadn’t been invited to speak.
Sarah Ison: “My opinion is that is to try to not sound combative.
“The way that the Prime Minister spoke on Sunday, saying these accusations that he refused to speak were wrong, and getting into a tit-for-tat defensive thing, I think didn’t play well.
“So I think he didn’t want to do this again with this sentence ‘I’m the Prime Minister’, I run the country’.
“(He didn’t want) to do the same sort of response. So I think it’s a de-escalation tactic in trying not to engage in what could be another escalation of this sort of conflict and try to keep it pretty low key, pretty respectful, saying: ‘I respect the organisers, I wish everyone well’, et cetera.”
The Opposition’s a little gleeful
Opposition Finance Spokeswoman Jane Hume told Sky News Albanese has “not so much a tin ear as a wall of concrete”.
Nationals Leader David Littleproud said the address was “tone deaf”.
David Littleproud: “That’s not how political leaders should carry themselves, nor particularly the Prime Minister. I have no sympathy for him whatsoever. If he had issues about whether he is involved or not, making it public in front of all those people was not the forum to do it.”
Sarah Ison says the Opposition is enjoying Albanese’s discomfort.
Sarah Ison: “I think you can almost see the opposition rubbing their hands because of how much Anthony Albanese and Labor, wrongly or rightly, pounced on Scott Morrison, when he was prime minister.”
After a similar march in 2021, triggered by the sexual assault allegations raised by Brittany Higgins, Morrison stood in parliament and declared: “Not far from here, such marches, even now, are being met with bullets – but not here in this country. This is a triumph of democracy when we see these things take place.”
Labor immediately leapt on this, with Albanese saying Morrison had: “not so much a tin ear as a wall of concrete … Women are demanding change and they are entitled to get it,” Albanese said in 2021.
Sarah Ison: “Fast forward a couple of years, Albanese is now caught in a sort of almost a similar situation where he’s really copping the ire of the women’s rights movement and a lot of people in it.
“And so you’re seeing the coalition say: ‘Well, now who’s got a tin ear?’.
“So it is this real, you know, karma sucks moment, I think that’s what you can see on the
coalition’s faces right now.”
What Albanese actually said
And then, a twist: new vision emerged on social platform X showing Albanese looking awkward as Williams asked the crowd if he should be allowed to speak.
Albanese, standing behind Williams, appears to say: “Do you want me to speak or not? I am the Prime Minister.”
#BREAKING 🚨 Video just published by the ABC shows Anthony Albanese telling Sarah Williams:
— 6 News Australia (@6NewsAU) April 29, 2024
“Do you want me to speak or not? I’m the Prime Minister.â€#6NewsAU | https://t.co/eU0kSSqP9Epic.twitter.com/prHAdnOSNa
Williams tells the PM: “I’m not having any attacks on myself or the organisation,” and asks the crowd “Speaking or not speaking?”
Members of the crowd call: “Speak,” and Williams hands over the mic.
Albanese cannot be heard in this clip saying: “I run the country.”
Williams bursts into tears and stands, being hugged by other women, as Albanese speaks.
The Grace Tame side-eye moment
We’ve been here before.
In January 2022, then Prime Minister Scott Morrison invited Grace Tame, a survivor of child sexual abuse who was the then Australian of the Year, to the Lodge.
Tame had been a critic of the Morrison government’s response to the allegation of sexual assault by Brittany Higgins, who said she’d been raped in parliament.
Upon arriving at the Lodge, Tame responded to Scott and Jenny Morrison’s smiles of welcome with a stern face, and when standing next to the Morrisons for a photo, looked sideways at Morrison in what famously became known as a ‘side-eye’.
Sarah Ison: “When there’s a camera, you know, regardless of what’s going on, often people will look at the camera and give a big beaming smile.
“That’s kind of the expectation for what happens at not just these events. Grace Tame didn’t really do that. And it produced these pretty incredible photos of this woman’s advocate giving this incredible side-eye, stink-eye expression to the PM.
“And afterwards (she) didn’t say: ‘Oh no, no I didn’t mean that.’
“No no, that’s where she was coming from. She was disappointed with leadership. A picture tells a thousand words – that’s the exact right phrase for that particular point in time.”
Why is domestic violence on the rise?
For a long time – probably most of humanity’s time on earth – domestic violence was concealed in shame and silence.
But over the past decade, much of law enforcement’s time has been spent dealing with this issue – as women became more and more confident that if they called police, they’d be believed.
Domestic violence now takes up well over half police time – but there are deep flaws in the systems of prosecution and protection. Victims can obtain apprehended violence orders – but offenders can ignore them if they’re determined enough. Police can arrest perpetrators – but magistrates can grant them bail – or they can serve light sentences – which leaves victims doubly vulnerable.
So far this year we've seen young Sydney couple Luke Baird and Jesse Davies, allegedly murdered by one of the men’s former partner, policeman Beau Lamarre-Condon. Young mum Molly Ticehurst, allegedly raped and then, weeks later, murdered by her former partner.
It’s important to note nobody has been convicted of either crime.
But it’s part of an atmosphere of increasing concern. In April a lone knifeman appeared to be targeting women and children shopping at Bondi Junction mall on his murderous rampage. The killer’s father later said he was frustrated because he couldn’t get a girlfriend.
Sarah Ison: “I think the public mood and from organisations advocating for change (is that) yes, the government is doing a lot, but it’s not like this huge step away from what the coalition was doing; investing in prevention, in frontline worker.
“This is what governments have always done, invest in different frontline services and in some prevention and some research. It seems a bit status quo at the moment.”
The government committed 2.3 billion dollars to be spent on programs like early intervention programs for teens – especially boys – who experienced gendered and family violence as children.
And it will review how the justice system responds to sexual and gendered violence.
Labor has also installed a Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Commissioner to keep the government on track, but Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth warned it could be a while before we see meaningful change in the community.
“There have been 27 murders of women in the first four months of 2024.
“There’s never been as many women killed in the first four months of any year, ever.
“And it just seems, I think because of how high those numbers are, (that) we need something else, something more.
“It needs to be an emergency. It can’t feel like a budget cycle. It can’t feel like the norm, the status quo. It has to be something else.
“And I think across the community of women’s advocacy, there’s a real concern that the national plan to end violence against women and children just isn’t really working.
“From women I’ve spoken to in those sectors today, they’re saying it’s great that (the plan) says we want to end violence against women and children in a generation.
“It doesn’t say how. It doesn’t lay any of that out. And (advocates are saying) we need that clarity.
“We need that really clear ambition and short term goal-making, where currently it’s just a bit in the abstract and it’s a bit ad hoc and it’s just not enough.”
This is an edited transcript of our free daily news podcast The Front. Hear it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or in The Australian’s app.
