The prime minister’s office has denied claims that it approved a call to Grace Tame, which told her not to criticise Scott Morrison at the 2022 Australian of the Year Awards, and is looking into the matter.
The 2021 Australian of the Year alleged in a speech given at the National Press Club on Feb. 9 that “a senior member of a government-funded organisation” had called her on Aug. 17 last year about the 2022 awards that were going to take place in January.
Tame told the National Press Club that the person asked her to promise that she would not say anything critical about Morrison on the evening of the 2022 Australian of the Year Awards.
“You’re an influential person. He'll have a fear ... with an election coming soon,” she recounted the person saying.
Women’s Safety Minister Anne Ruston referred to the incident as a completely unacceptable thing for an organisation funded by public tax money to do and confirmed that the government’s investigation was ongoing.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in Parliament on Feb. 10 that he had not and would not condone such actions.
“They were not made on my behalf, now would they ever be. And they were not made with my knowledge in any way shape, or form, or by my office. I and my government consider the actions and statements of the individual, as it was explained, as absolutely unacceptable,” Morrison said.
“At all times I have sought to treat Ms Tame with dignity and respect.
“Ms. Tame should always be free to speak their mind in my view and conduct herself as she chooses. I’ve made no criticism of Ms. Tame, her statement, or her actions,” he said.
The prime minister’s office stated that Morrison had not and would not sanction such actions, and on the contrary, had sought to treat Tame with dignity and respect at all times.
Meanwhile, the office called upon the individual whom Tame refused to name to issue an apology.
“Those comments were not made on behalf of the PM or PMO or with their knowledge,” the statement from the prime minister’s office said.
“The PM and the government consider the actions and statements of the individual as unacceptable.”
The National Australia Day Council (NADC), the national coordinating body for the awards, said it had reached out to Tame to request further information.
It also examined various personnel who spoke with Tame in the past year and said that none of those people had interactions that would be deemed threatening as the Aug. 17 conversation that she described.
“The Australian of the Year Award is just that – an award, not a role,” the organisation said.
“Award recipients are free to use the platform the award provides any way they see fit, with the support of the NADC.”
Tame criticised the federal government’s investigation while calling upon Morrison to stop diverting attention.
“It’s not about the person who made the call. It’s the fact they felt like they had to do it,” she wrote on a Twitter post.
Earlier, she compared the call with the child sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of her high school teacher.
“I remember standing in the shadow of a trusted authority figure being threatened in just the same veiled way,” Tame said.
“I would rather go down as a disappointment to an institution than sell out as a pandering political puppet to the corrupt forces that coercively control it.”
Tame, who was delivering a speech at the National Press Club alongside former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, rejected the prime mister’s apology issued the day earlier on the culture of assault and harassment at the parliament.
The commissioner introduced other recommendations in the Senate on Feb. 9.
Higgins, who sparked off various reviews after alleging that a colleague had raped her in the office of then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds in 2019, said she did not care much about the government’s assurances.
“I don’t care if the government has improved the way that they talk about these issues. I’m not interested in words anymore. I want to see action,” she said.
Higgins also condemned Morrison’s tendency for using “shocking” and “offensive” language on women’s issues and their safety.
“What bothered me most about the whole ‘imagine if it were our daughters’ spiel wasn’t that he necessarily needed his wife’s advice to help contextualise my rape in a way that mattered to him personally,” she said.
“I didn’t want his sympathy as a father; I wanted him to use his power as prime minister.”
Higgins was among women who received an invitation to the 8 February apology in the House of Representatives at the last minute, after the government was heavily criticised for leaving her out.
“It was deeply emotional in a way that I wasn’t anticipating,” she said of the apology.
“I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to be there because it made it so much more tangible.”
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