The Chaser Report - Definitional Weirdness | Grace Tame

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Our guest today is Australian of the Year Grace Tame, who advocates for survivors of sexual assault, and for clearer, consistent definitions in our criminal law. We talked to her about how to achieve change, and what still stands in the way. (This episode includes an excerpt from a much longer chat with Grace, which we've also published in our feed.) Plus, we hack news.com.au, find a loophole in the mask mandate, and uncover a flaw in Qantas' big giveaway. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to by Channel 7's latest cooking show, the government's hottest takes, where your favourite senators cook up the worst opinions instead of helping everyday Australians. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome with The Chaser Report on Tuesday, the 24th of August 21, which Charles and Gabby is the second day on which we, Sydney-Siders, have to wear a mask every moment when we walk outside the house. Sydney side is Dom, the whole of New South Wales,

masks are now compulsory outside, but I've got a life hack. You've got a hack. I've got a hack for that. I'm somehow sceptical, Gabby. You're you're sceptical of Charles' hack? I'm always sceptical of Charles's life hacks. They've never once proven to be innovative. This is a piece of genius, right?

Okay, so this morning, instead of putting on my jeans, I put on some running shorts, right? So I don't have to wear a mask outside, because under the law, you don't have to wear a mask if you exercise you. Not how it works. And so because I've got the shorts on, at any point, if a cop comes up, I'll just say, oh, can't you see? I'm in my exercise gear, I'm exercised.

I suspect the cop will see through your cunning ruse, Charles. And maybe your shorts. What kind of shorts are that indicative of like exercise? Oh, God. Not the double pin stripe, Charles. You look like a year eight kid. Yes, stripes. I got good legs.

I think they'll just beguile the cops with my sexy leagues. I think you get arrested for an indecent display, and I think that's probably the best outcome. Coming up on the show, we have an incredible interview with Australian of the year, Grace Tame, who just blew us away. We really were rendered quite speechless throughout the entire thing. You were, you were. Yeah, I think I left my body for about 20 minutes and then came back into it. But, yeah, she's an incredible, incredible interviewee, and you should really listen to the whole thing.

Just want to point out as well, it's only an excerpt that we've published here in this episode. The full interview is available in your feed below this episode. So if you want to listen to it later in the day, please go ahead. Plus, John Delmenico, one of our writers, has been quoted on news.com.com. And he's used it to sort of create a bit of a, a bit of a chaser stunt, really.

So that's coming up before the Grosse Tome interview because, of course, that's the correct order to do things. And also, we wanted you to stick around. Yeah, we're hooking you forward. But first, let's go to Rebecca Dana Muno in the Chaser Newsroom. Beloved Children's Entertainers, the Wiggles, came under fire yesterday from Senator Matt Canavan, who threw a tantrum after the group added four new members

that weren't white guys. A petition has since begun online, calling for the Wiggles to change their line up and replace the big red car with an electric. red car just to see how mad Matt Canavan would get. Gladys Berrigalian has admitted that yesterday's COVID numbers were shredded by her office. She said shredding the terrible numbers was a complete accident, just like the way she accidentally shredded a whole lot of documents that the Corruption Commission in New South

Wales had requested. But experts say it is no accident the Delta variant has shredded her credibility. The Prime Minister has accused the Labour Party of trying to undermine the government during every step of the pandemic. The complaint was made by Scott Morrison, a man who has never made a mistake when it comes to vaccines, quarantine, jobkeeper and lockdowns. That's the latest chase and news you can't trust.

I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. Channel 7's latest cooking show the government's hottest takes sees your favourite parliamentarians going head to head in a bid to spice up their press coverage with the worst flavor. is. I no longer recognize the country that I grew up in.

So in the news headlines, we had a joke about the Wiggles changing their big red car to the big electric car to annoy Senator Matt Canavan. And that's because of a tweet that he wrote about the Wiggles when they added four new members and became more diverse. He said, you go woke, you go broke. Now, one of our writers John actually tweeted that joke about the electric car and it went very viral. Not only that, it was actually picked up by News.com.a.u.a.u. And put into an article. John thought he'd use that situation to create a little bit of havoc on their homepage. Hey, John. Hi. So what did the tweet actually say? So last night, before I went to bed, I tweeted out a joke about Matt Canavan. I tweeted out petition to get the

Wiggles to replace the big red car with an electric red car to see how Matt Canavan gets. Great tweet. Good tweet. And I woke up this morning and it was doing quite well and then it came to my attention that that was because the News Corp embedded it in an article which means it links straight to it from if you're looking at their news article

about what Mike Kanavan said Oh yeah so you scroll down the page and there's your embedded tweet So it's actually like a little screenshot of Twitter Onnews.com.com.com.com. Yeah. And luckily because they embedded it it updates to show what the tweet

looks like at the current time you're looking at it including your name. I see. So I changed my name to fuck off Murdoch then before we retweet it from the chaser account I thought I'd get in a quick listen to the chaser report Oh thanks Nice As a one-two punch

Assuming that when we read when we tweeted it from the Chaser account It would then get up Get off the Off the article That didn't work Is it still up Yeah so instead of doing my actual job

I decided to just turn this into a chaser start And see how far I can push it Well, thank fuck, honestly, because we've been starved for stunt opportunities. It's impressive. What are some of the ones you put out? So next I put out pay tax Murdochie fuckwit. And then I decided to plug some of our old stuff. So the cost of his nipples hashtag and said fairy bread is cancelled.

Oh, fun memories. And then Gabby came in with a great suggestion for Captain Featherhor. I can't believe you did that one. Yeah, that's when I realized that this looks back. to people who don't know what my thread is because then it's just my Twitter name for everything that... Yeah, everyone thinks you're the captain.

So then that inspired me to go down a route of different weird jokes. So then I feel like this might be one of the best ones. Choochoochoochugger-chugger Murdoch ban. John, you're a columnist for news.com.com. You should invoice them. Back off Murdoch. Yeah, you're right.

I've just looked up the website. This is great. All publicity is good publicity, boys. Coming up this week on the latest episode of the government's hottest takes, political hopeful and guest judge, Pete Evans, shows our contestants how to slow cook a conspiracy. Our guest on this episode of The Chaser Report is Grace Tame, the 2021 Australian of the Year. She's an advocate for survivors of sexual assault, particularly those who, like Grace

herself, were abused in institutional settings. Previously, the law in Tasmania prevented victims of sexual assault from speaking out about their experience, even though the media could do so and the perpetrator could do so. But Grace campaigned to get that changed. We had a long conversation with Grace and we've placed the whole of it in your feed for today below this episode. So if you want to go and hear that conversation, please go ahead and do so. So what follows is an excerpt of our conversation with the amazing Grace Tame. Grace, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thank you guys for having me.

What's it like being Australian of the year when about half the country is in lockdown and you can't actually go and visit most of it. Well, I don't really have anything to compare it to, I suppose. You know, what's being the Australian of the year in any circumstances? Yeah, well, what do you do? What do I do? That's a great question. No.

I do an awful lot of talking to people, not just, you know, in the context of public speaking, but, you know, advocacy behind the scenes, privately talking with survivors. but also meeting with relevant policy and decision makers, you know, members of both political parties or all political parties, I should say, there's more than just two, and working towards creating actual structural change because there are a lot of resources out there that currently exist that are specifically for survivor support. But in terms of actual structural change, which as we all know, is the real thing that we need to achieve in order for change to stay and be permanent.

You know, there's not a lot of organisations out there that are geared towards that. So my partner, Max, and I are in the final stages of establishing our foundation, the sole purpose of that foundation, which will be to pursue structural change. And our sort of initial campaign, I suppose, is a campaign to achieve national standardised definitions. So currently we've got, including the Commonwealth, nine different jurisdictions, and as such, we've got nine very different definitions of grooming. For instance, and in fact, in some jurisdictions, grooming isn't even defined at all.

We also have nine different definitions of consent, and we wonder why we're using milkshakes to try to teach people without it. We also have nine different definitions of sexual intercourse, and this is an interesting one, because in those nine different definitions, to be really crude, some of them are just straight, like penis entering the vagina. In other definitions, it includes penetration by a foreign object or other part of the body. So we can see in those straight definitions, the LGBTIQIA plus community are completely left out. We also have nine different definitions of what a child is, so what the age of a child is,

and then nine different definitions of what the age of consent to sex is. So in some cases you've got children who are able to consent to sex. And it is important to note that, of course, we don't want to be punishing kids who are in consensual relationships, who are, you know, 16, 17, 18, that sort of bracket. it. But there are ways to create carve-outs that prevent those unfair punishments from actually happening. But the point is, is that there's this glaring inconsistency across the nation. And that inconsistency stops us from being able to properly understand each of these things, which therefore impedes our ability to educate the public about them. That's our first campaign.

It's funny, because we actually came up against this definitional weirdness. couple of months ago. I want that description. Definitional weirdness. And I won't describe the case, but you might be having to guess. There was a whole argy-bargy about upskirting, right? So that is a defined legal concept in each state, but they all have different definitions for it in each state. And the ones in Queensland, the actual definition is so badly, our lawyers said to us, this is such a badly drafted piece of legislation that if someone downpants you without consent, then that is not the same as upskirting,

and it doesn't fall within the legislation of what upskirting is. That has caused a lot of problems for a lot of people, and I'm sure you might be able to work out what I'm talking about. Well, actually, so what is upskirting? It's taking photos of women without the consent, usually women without their consent from below. From below. It is a form of sexual assault.

Yeah, and also. Yeah, and it's a very, very recent concept in the Court of Law. I was going to say I felt really ignorant. No, no, it's, yeah, it's... I haven't heard the term, and I'm so glad you defined it for me, because in my mind, I'm upskirting, I'm thinking, this is a carpentry. Yeah, it's like a joist. A skirting board.

I think that might be the definition in Tasmania. We're that far behind, so... So you've got to get all of the legal side of things harmonised so that we're all working off the same page. But then I guess there's a question of how do we change behaviours? And the debate that we've had since you became Australian of the year has focused a lot on this, how you actually change people's actions. What do you think we need to do on that front?

We really need to be open, honest and raw, which is obviously hard to do like on a national stage. For instance, you know, not only did I not have a very long time when I made my acceptance speech at the Australian of the Year Awards, but it's also, it's hard to get that graphic in that context. And even, you know, when I had a lot longer to talk at the press club in March, I didn't go into a lot of the gory details. And there's a merit to that because obviously, you know,

we need to protect ourselves and I didn't want the media to sensationalise things because there's sensationalism and then there's honesty. But I think it's really about opening people's eyes to just, how insidious sex crimes are, but more so than anything, really, really honing in on the psychological manipulation that underpins them. That's our real knowledge gap.

These terms like grooming and coercive control and indeed upskirting are still very new terms, and our understanding of those things is still lacking. And I think that we need to keep the conversation going around those things. Because that's not really how the media reports on these sorts of crimes, is it? They sort of tend to focus on the sort of violent details, which is actually not really necessarily It's the tip of the iceberg. You know, in so many cases, you know, it's, in my case, the grooming, the psychological manipulation went on for a period of months. But there are a lot of

of cases where the grooming is, you know, done over a period of years. And also there's the fact that the psychological impacts of those sorts of, you know, those forms of manipulation last long after the abuse itself stops. The cognitive dissonance remains, the shame and the guilt. It's an ongoing thing. And a lot of trauma, especially that you experience as a child, can lie dormant in you because you as a child there's a thing like where we were exposed to so much shit that after a point you just you just stop being surprised by it and it does it becomes normal you are desensitized often not until we are much older and have life experience in which to contextualize the things that happened when we didn't have a frame of reference, that we

realize just how bad they are. For me, it's only been in the last four, five years that I've had conversations with people and shared details. Often I do this to Max inadvertently, like I'll just say something that I've processed or that I hear in my head all the time, you know, that's just a detail of the abuse and I'll say it out loud, really off the cuff. And Max will have a visceral reaction to it like it's and that makes me sort of like I feel a little bit it's not like self-pity but it's like you know it's confronting when somebody else reacts in that way it sounds like there's a deep programming that happens yeah it's part of the recovery process in terms of providing support and counselling and all the psychological assistance where are we with that are we miles off where we need

to be to help people who've been through this um well again it's it's hard to measure the problem that we're facing at the moment is we're sort of seeing a mass, like an on mass disclosure where, for instance, my speech triggered Brittany Higgins to come forward and so on and so on. There have been lots of reports by Lifeline and other such helplines sharing that they're experiencing an unprecedented number of calls and requests. And I, too, personally, I get disclosures that I can't, the volume of them is, you know, it's constant, you know, how can we adequately measure at this stage so early on in this shift from total silence, you know, to sort of this explosion of people coming forward?

How do we measure something adequately that we have been conditioned for so long to believe is unspeakable? There are so many hidden cases still. And sadly, we'll never know how many never actually reached that point of feeling ready to disclose their experience. Can I just say, as a woman watching another woman around my age, make the speech that you made and win the award and the acclaim that you have for, it's just like, I just think you're fucking incredible. And I think what you have done for not only just women worldwide, but particularly in this country, do you think that there is a genuine,

issue with not only how we treat the terms of sexual assault, they're not being consistency with how it's discussed, but also just the fact that women in particular are so used to just repressing these horrible things. And also, we're not educating the boys of this country to also create equilibrium between gendered violence and everything. I just, yeah, I, I love you so much. But, yeah, I just... Thank you. And you. You've said some very kind things. I don't know if I'd describe myself in the same way, but I'll... It's all right.

That's what we're for. I'm supposed to be getting better at taking compliments. So thank you. I understand. Just a reminder that the rest of that conversation with Grace Tame is available in your podcast feed below today's episode. She has a lot more to say about all kinds of things, including the prospect of action from this government.

Check it out. We love talking to her. Thank you so much to Grace for her time. If you haven't caught up on this week's episode of the government's hottest takes, you can do it on 7 plus, or Facebook, or Twitter, or the TV, or even your local newspaper. This groundhog day has to end. Yeah, we're definitely fucked. Charles and Gabby some very, very good news before we go.

Qantas is encouraging vaccination with the big competition to give away, not only frequent flypoints and status credits, stuff like that, but a year's worth of flights. you go up and upload your vaccination certificate, you can actually get a year's worth of flights. Isn't that exciting? Can you use it for... Where to?

Yeah, any year? Like 2026? Where the fuck? Can you go? You can't go? You're not allowed. It's illegal. It's illegal to get to the airport.

It's a year's worth of domestic flights. And then once borders open, you can go on international routes as well. If you want to. And if you get a lad back into the country. This is like the best prize I can possibly imagine. Are you telling me? me that even this, COVID has ruined, even this, Charles.

Yes, I am. I'm just literally saying, and they knew. Quantum management knew that it's a scam. They just went, well, how much should we price that as? Oh, that all costs it's about a hundred bucks. Yeah, people will just go to Melbourne and then go, yeah. I've done that. It was scary.

That like a flag. You can't even travel domestically. We won't be allowed into Western Australia until at least 2030. Can you imagine it'll be like a flight to anywhere you want except Western Australia. That's what the price is. That is pretty good. Yeah, I don't mind that. I wonder if the rest of the country would accept a flight to Sydney.

Oh, yeah. Ever again. These borders aren't opening until Charles and I probably passed away. Let's be honest. Yeah, you know what's crazy? I sometimes think about the long-term effects of tourism here now. And even after, hopefully all of this is gone, can you imagine the next tourism campaign for Sydney?

I actually just think it'll be somebody begging. Please come. Please come. Please, love God, we're so sorry. please be our friend again. We're so sick of all the other Sydney Siders. We just want to one foreign for once. You can leave us to five-star review if you wish on Apple Podcasts or any number of stars,

but we do encourage five. Today's code word is... Grace Tame, Australian of the Year. Get Grace Tame on more. I think that's the key takeaway from that conversation. Our gear is, thanks to road microphones and we're part of the A-Cast. Creator Network, catch you tomorrow when sadly we won't have any Australians at the year. But we will have an episode.

Yeah. We'll have worse Australians of the year. We'll get Steve War.