Grace Tame opens up on photo with Scott Morrison at Australia Day function – and how her mother turned against her

Grace Tame has opened up about the moment she refused to smile when meeting then Prime Minister Scott Morrison more than a year ago.

Instead, the 2021 Australian of the Year gave Mr Morrison a chilling look over a morning tea for the 2022 Australian State and Territory Award winners at the Lodge.

The photos captured national and international attention, with praise and criticism raining down on Ms Tame.

Speaking to former Detective Gary Jubelin about his I catch killers podcast, Ms Tame said it was not about not smiling, but about “not playing the game”.

She revealed that one of her biggest critics of the awkward exchange was her own mother, who disapproved of her frosty behavior.

“One of the people who had a very negative reaction at first was my mum. And my mom has been through a lot of trauma in her own life,” she said.

“She comes from a generation where there was a lot more suppression of things.”

But many other women were delighted with her response to Mr Morrison, whom she has regularly condemned for his handling of Cabinet minister Brittany Higgins’ allegations that she was sexually assaulted by a colleague in a minister’s office in 2019.

Bruce Lehrmann was later identified as the colleague and he strenuously denied these allegations.

“I think in general, and it’s not just about women…a lot of the responses I got were about women realizing they don’t have to smile anymore,” Ms Tame said.

“And for me, it’s not really what I thought. For me, it was about not playing the game and especially in the context of the experiences I had had.

Speaking about meeting Mr Morrison, she said there is a ‘fundamental respect that everyone deserves’.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter where you come from, it doesn’t matter if you’re a five-year-old or the king,” she said.

She was neither impressed nor intimidated by meeting the Prime Minister at his Canberra residence.

“If people demand excessive respect and they use that respect as a tool of excessive control to dominate…and use it to manipulate and actually create an environment where abuse can foster or corruption can foster – that’s not is not respect.

“It’s something completely different. And I don’t believe it. That’s what I was trying to communicate.

Ms Tame, whose autobiography ‘The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner’ was published last year, has spoken of regaining her power after sexual abuse.

“The power has to be given back to you because everything that happens to you as a child against your will happens to you before you’ve even had a chance to settle down,” she said.

“Often kids who have never had the opportunity to set their own boundaries don’t know how to set their own boundaries because they haven’t had boundaries.

“They were so used to people coming in and being able to just push them around and dictate terms.”

Ms Tame, who advocates for victims of sexual assault, has been a vocal critic of Mr Morrison.

She delivered a brutal blow to him days before the May 2022 federal election, claiming he was “using” his wife Jenny as a weapon against Anthony Albanese.

“There is something very telling about a man who repeatedly confides his morality to his wife,” she posted on social media at the time.

“A woman he uses as an object of blame, to assuage his conscience for his bad behavior, to clarify abuse, to make Anthony – who has a less traditional family – seem morally inferior, and so on.”

Ms Tame got engaged to Tasmanian Max Heerey 18 months ago, calling him her ‘biggest supporter’ and ‘true kindred spirit’.

She also started the Grace Tame Foundation to campaign for legal reform and support for victims of sexual abuse.