26 April 2022
WARNING - Distressing content, reader discretion is advised.
Article from April 2022 edition of INPractice
Not afraid to stare down a Prime Minister and how we now collectively have the power to build a better future.
“I remember him towering over me, blocking the door.
“I remember him saying, ‘Don’t tell anybody.’
“I remember him saying, ‘Don’t make a sound.’
“Well hear me now. Using my voice, amongst a growing chorus of voices that will not be silenced.
“Let’s make some noise, Australia.”
Such was the searing testimony of child sex abuse survivor Grace Tame in her Australian of the Year award acceptance speech last year.
Violence against women is a huge issue in nursing and Tame, along with former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins, was instrumental in shining a huge torch on a culture of abuse, both women vociferous in their condemnation of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s handling of women’s safety issues.
“The survival of abuse culture is dependent on submissive smiles and self-defeating surrenders. It is dependent on hypocrisy,” Tame tweeted of her stony-faced appearance with Morrison at this year’s Australian of the Year Awards. “But it’s not just women who are conditioned to smile and conform to the visibly rotting status-quo.
It’s all of us.”
Shortly after at a National Press Club appearance, Tame unleashed another volley: “After a year of being re-victimised, commodified, objectified, sensationalised, delegitimised, gaslit, thrown under the bus by the biased, mainstream media, despite my inclusive messaging, I would like to take this opportunity to … remind you that I really have nothing to lose.”
As a young adult Grace Tame, to quote Environment Minister Sussan Ley, is “a force of nature” and “a leader for many women across Australia’’. She is a force for good, a force for change – a force moulded by the shocking trauma of being repeatedly raped at age 15 by her 58-year-old teacher.
Her rapist, Hobart teacher Nicolaas Bester, gloated and boasted about his crimes on social media. But Grace, now 27, was forbidden by law from speaking out as an adult about the atrocities committed against her by an authority figure 43 years her senior. Journalists, commentators and even her abuser had all been able to publicly discuss her case, but not Grace.
“Less than three years ago regardless of whether or not anyone was listening I couldn’t even say my own name publicly, even if I wanted to, because I was silenced by law,’’ she said.
“Photographers could only take photos of the back of my head or blur me out. Journalists referred to me as Jane Doe. And 12 years ago, while in the throes of psychological grooming, I lived minute to minute. That said, I do still remember exactly how I felt back then thanks to the trauma that’s stored permanently in my cells.
“My memory of Saturday, June 19th, 2010, for example, comes with the same panicked heartbeat and the same knotted gut every time I revisit it. I was being sized up by a paedophile, his eyes tracing over me as he smirked at my innocence.
“He had just pulled me out of the weekend rehearsal for the school play and led me to an empty classroom on the other side of the campus. In that moment I wasn’t even thinking about speaking out, let alone whether or not anyone would hear me if I did.
“I was a child. I didn’t understand what was happening even as it unfolded before my very eyes. I was so disarmed by the calculated manipulation of someone almost four times my age, the thought of being an Australian of the Year was inconceivable and yet here I am.
“I think reality is catching up with me and while I am still paying the price physically and emotionally of what happened when I was 15 and will always wrestle with the lasting impacts of trauma, I’m also excited and optimistic about this momentous paradigm shift we are now in and the opportunity that comes with it for a better future for our children and for survivors of child sexual abuse.’’
Grace was sexually abused by Bester at the exclusive St Michael’s Collegiate School in Hobart. Years later her courageous and successful push for legal reform in Tasmania and her determination to raise awareness of sexual assault and advocacy for survivors of assault won her the Australian of the Year award in January 2021. She is now on a mission to bring about national legislative reform.
Grace says she is one of at least five girls who were targeted, conditioned and exploited at the school. Some of the abuse, she says, was already known to the school - before she was even born.
Hers is a voice resonant with power - highly articulate, extremely evocative. And it is a voice that has grown increasingly louder given her elevated status. Scott Morrison must rue the day she was ever crowned top Aussie given her continued outspokenness on the lack of Government action on issues of sexual harassment and abuse.
A report by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins late last year found one in three people working in federal parliament had experienced some kind of sexual harassment there. One per cent had been sexually assaulted. And data released by the ABS in December revealed 53 per cent of women and 25 per cent of men in Australia have experienced sexual harassment.
Grace has emerged from a tormented, tortured childhood (anorexia, undiagnosed autism and, of course, a real-life schoolyard monster) and come out the other side empowered and determined to empower. And she is not afraid to put a PM in his place.
Asked about Morrison invoking his daughters in response to Brittany Higgins’ Parliament House rape allegations against a former colleague, Grace said: “It shouldn’t take having children to have a conscience. And actually, on top of that, having children doesn’t guarantee a conscience.’’
Afterall, her rapist, Bester, was a father. Grace’s harrowing ordeal “all started in April 2010. I was battling a life-threatening eating disorder. I’d arrived late to school after a routine outpatient appointment only to discover the rest of my Year 10 classmates had just left on an excursion that I had completely forgotten about.
“I often missed things like this back then, I was already detached and barely had the energy to get out of bed most days. One of my teachers spotted me wandering aimlessly in the courtyard. He was a tall man, 6ft 2, 58 years old, very well respected having served as the head of maths and science for nearly 20 years. He taught me the year prior during the height of my anorexia.
“He was always asking me questions and I was always answering them without a second thought, just as I would have any other person in a position of authority with a supposed duty of care.
“Afterall, he said that he cared, ‘I’ll never hurt you, Gracie’. That’s what he used to say, ‘I’ll never hurt you, Gracie’ … until he did.
“He asked me to stay late after school one day because he said he had something special to show me. He took me to a well-hidden storeroom with a closet and without faltering, taking direct lines from the playbook of my childhood trauma that I had just shared with him (of being molested at age six by an older child who made her go into a closet and undress), he asked me to go in, he asked me to go in and undress.
“I had never seen evil like that, not even on screen. It was unimaginable.
“And yet this man made it look so simple, at least at first, so long as things went according to his plan. Each time he saw me thereafter he would add another unforeseeable element, wearing me down further and further gradually … I quickly learned not to resist and as his power grew, the more helpless I became.
“But he couldn’t hide his frustration when upon trying to rape me for the first time, I contracted so much that he actually failed to penetrate me. He tried to loosen me up with alcohol, lots of it, but it made no difference. He eventually gave up and dropped me off on the side of the road outside the local cinema where my cousin Milly had agreed to meet me and take me home.
Below: Grace Tame at the Australian of the Year Breakfast 2021 hosted by the Australia Day Council of South Australia.
“I was so drunk I had to crawl through the entrance and Milly picked me up off the bathroom floor.
“He, of course, eventually did succeed in raping me, over and over. It just required more overt violence. Truly he destroyed almost every part of me, including my love of running. I was in my sports uniform the day he took my virginity in the afternoon of the school athletics carnival. He was laughing, telling me he couldn’t believe how much cellulite he could see on the legs of all the girls running up at the track as I laid on my back staring at the ceiling too shocked to move. But knowing by feeling that I was bleeding.
“This abuse continued for months. It stopped just before Christmas when we broke for the summer holidays, but he was still stalking me well into the next year, sitting outside my house at night in his car, turning up to my work on weekends, or standing in the classroom doorway during lessons he didn’t even teach, just waiting for me to turn around and see that he was watching me.’’
Determined to turn the tables on her tormenter, the teenage Tame drew strength from another male teacher, Dr William Simon, “a proud gay man with a demonstrative value of people over policy and a healthy disrespect for the status quo”.
“I told Bill and without hesitation he believed me. I will never forget that pivotal moment of validation, acceptance, patience, support; it was all that was needed to move to the next step, reporting to police.
“But still being only 16 then and thus unaware of the depth of the psychological rewiring that this predator had deliberately forged in my still developing brain, when I gave my initial statement, I effectively defended him.
“I was terrified that he would find out I’d betrayed him and then he’d kill me.
“Such was my naivety in fact that I remember looking the police officer in the eye and very earnestly saying ‘Please, just don’t tell my mum and dad’. I somehow thought I could spare them the pain.’’
Police found 28 multimedia files of child exploitation material on Bester’s computer “as well as a trophy file of all of his girls, topless”.
“But for this and his crimes against me he was sentenced to a total of two years and 10 months in jail, ‘maintaining a sexual relationship with a person under the age of 17’ was the wording of the main offence, which in other states was ‘the persistent sexual abuse of a child’,’’ Grace said.
“And if you are still doubting what impact language has on perception, the first front page headline that came out in the wake of the court proceedings was ‘Teacher admits to affair with student’. Naturally Grace and her family were enraged that the repeated, brutal rape of a child could somehow be construed by the media as an affair.
“And less than two years later, after serving only one year and nine months, this same man was released from prison on good behaviour and awarded a federally funded PhD scholarship to the only university in my home state,’’ Grace said.
“At the time my mother was also studying there. From a working class family she hadn’t had the opportunity to do so growing up. She soon dropped out because of his presence on campus. He was put into student accommodation with fresh 17 and 18-year-old undergraduates.
“He then took to Facebook to boast about his experience of abusing me, describing it as ‘awesome’ and ‘enviable’.’’
One of Bester’s vile posts read: “The majority of men in Australia envy me ... She was 15 going on 25. It was awesome”.
Says Grace: “But despite this and despite multiple reports to police by fellow uni students of his predatory behaviour and despite then being convicted and jailed a second time for his vulgar public comments that he made during his PhD tenure, he was allowed to continue his studies.
“After all this it became quite obvious to me why child sexual abuse remains ubiquituous in our society. Because while predators retain the power to get exactly what they want, the power to fein remorse, the power to objectify their targets, it’s us, the innocent, both survivors and bystanders alike, who suffer because of shame and because of fear-induced inaction.
“In 2017, in the hopes of educating the public and challenging these injustices, I connected with groundbreaking freelance journalist Nina Funnell, only to discover we were thwarted by another particularly sinister form of systemic oppression: Section 194K of Tasmania’s Evidence Act which made it illegal for survivors of child sexual abuse to share their experiences publicly under their own name, even after turning 18, even with their consent.
“The powers that be would have had us believe that we’ve reached a dead-end. But Nina and I believed otherwise. Although our next planned step was blocked, we simply had to forge a new path.
“So, using my case as the foundation Nina created the hashtag ‘Let Her Speak’ campaign to reform the law, to challenge and redefine the system. We were then joined by 16 other brave survivors who lent their stories to the cause, and we marched on.
“But remember, as I said, the impact of psychological grooming lasts long after the abuse itself stops. So, while the journey continued so did the trauma. My recovery certainly has been anything but a linear one.
“I moved overseas at just 18 by myself. I drank, threw myself into study, abused drugs, dyed my hair, cut myself, met amazing friends, found myself in more violent relationships, toured the US with Monty Python’s John Cleese as his personal illustrator, more than once.’’
After moving to the US Grace graduated from Santa Barbara City College with a degree in theatre arts and liberal arts. It was in America that she befriended John Cleese’s daughter Camilla, a successful comedian in her own right.
Camilla asked her to do an illustration of her father for Father’s Day. Papa Cleese loved it so much Grace ended up touring with John for part of his ‘Holy Grail’ US tour. Her sketches became some of the most successful merchandise sold on tour.
Also a champion long-distance runner, Grace won Tasmania’s 2020 Ross Marathon (42km) in a female course record time of 2:59:31. During training she often runs more than 100km in a week.
“I practiced yoga and even became a yoga teacher,’’ Grace added.
“I starved, I binged, I starved again. I was buoyed by the collective success of the campaign when the law was finally reformed in Tasmania, only to find out a month later that the paedophile was awarded his doctorate. The culture lives on.’’
The #LetHerSpeak campaign, which attracted the support of the leaders of the #MeToo movement globally and celebrities such as John Cleese and actress Alyssa Milano, led to Grace being given an exemption by the Tasmanian Supreme Court to speak publicly in 2019. She was the first woman in Tasmania to be granted the exemption.
The archaic Section 194K law was eventually overturned in 2020. An online petition for its removal, initiated by Funnell, attracted more than 8,000 signatures.
“My experience of sexual abuse ended 12 years ago but make no mistake the emotional trauma and physical scars will last a lifetime,’’ Grace said.
“I’ve made it no secret that I still battle with residual demons and yet I am one of luckiest ones. One who survived, one who was believed, one who was surrounded by love.
“I’m also now one who has a voice that is listened to, that is a great honour and a privilege.
“But we shouldn’t be OK with a child that survives rape being one of the luckiest ones. Our children deserve more than that, they should never have to go through it.
“And right now we collectively have the power to make that guarantee, we collectively have the power to save lives.’’
Grace established the Grace Tame Foundation (GTF) in 2021, a not-for-profit philanthropic organisation to campaign for and help fund initiatives which work to prevent and respond to sexual abuse of children and others.
She is also on a mission to bring about more legislation reform.
Grace says the core barriers to progress are legal inconsistencies. “Currently, including the Commonwealth, we have nine different jurisdictions with nine very different legal definitions of consent, of sexual intercourse, sexual assault, grooming, what constitutes a child and what constitutes the age of consent,’’ she says.
“Such ambiguity undermines our collective ability to understand each of these things and therefore our ability to teach them properly.
“We at a state and federal level need to commit to a uniform national standard set of legal definitions of consent, sexual intercourse, sexual assault, grooming, what constitutes a child and what constitutes the age of consent to sex.
“We then need to teach these in a national unformed approach, with education resources for parents, children, schools, law enforcement and community and social services.
“It’s thanks to those closest to me (her family and partner Max) … but it’s also thanks to the community as a whole that I am here and feel able to keep going,’’ she says.
“What I never expected was this tsunami of support that has followed since I spoke out publicly, particularly this year. It really goes to show how sometimes all that’s needed for collective healing is one person’s willingness to be vulnerable, to take that first step. Just as every survivor does and has done in making the decision to come forward.
“The intensity of empathy and support has been overwhelming and humbling, the thousands upon thousands of messages of encouragement, the applause and cheers at rallies.
“These are all tangible gestures of love for the cause, love for the whole community of survivors who have been marginalised for so long.
“However, this is a double-edged sword. There are so many people who share the pain, they too are survivors of child sexual abuse, sexual assault or domestic violence.
“What has been particularly chilling is the volume of stories that people are sharing with me, these crimes have been happening and continue to happen more than any data could possibly measure, things we have been conditioned to believe are unspeakable.
“About 1 in 10 children will experience sexual abuse before their 18th birthday. It takes a survivor on average 23.9 years before they feel ready to disclose their experience.
“There is, of course, no way of telling how many survivors never actually reach that point.
“If my story and my experience of the last few years has taught me anything it is that one person, every person, has the potential to make a difference and we now collectively have the opportunity and responsibility to drive towards a new future free from child sexual abuse, domestic violence, and other such corrupt cultures.’’
Sexual assault and family violence support lines:
1800 Respect National Helpline:
1800 737 732
Men’s Referral Service:
1300 766 491
Lifeline (24-hour Crisis Line):
131 114
Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia:
1800 385 578
Click here to read the April 2022 edition of INPractice
This interview was taken from a webinar hosted by the Australian Trade Union Institute.