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Newly crowned Australian of the Year Grace Tame removed the portrait of acclaimed actor Geoffrey Rush from an honour wall just hours after she was honoured with this year’s award.
Rush’s portrait was notably missing on Australia Day – the same day Ms Tame’s portrait was added to the honour wall of Canberra’s Crowne Plaza hotel.
Daily Mail Australia has been told by multiple sources that Ms Tame removed Rush’s portrait in protest after unproved allegations he behaved inappropriately during a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear in 2017.
Before: 2012 Australian of the Year Geoffrey Rush’s portrait sits beside Simon McKeon and Ita Buttrose
After: Rush’s portrait was removed by Grace Tame on Australia Day and remained that way
Australian of the Year winner Grace Tame during the 2021 Australian of the Year Awards at the National Arboretum in Canberra on Monday
Geoffrey Rush was honoured in 2012. The 2021 winner removed his portrait from the honour wall
Rush was awarded a record multi-million dollar payout over the defamatory claims, which were published by The Daily Telegraph that year.
Nationwide News appealed the decision, but last year was told to pay the Oscar winner almost $2.9 million in damages.
The stories alleged Rush behaved inappropriately towards Eryn Jean Norvill, his co-star in the production.
Daily Mail Australia has been told Ms Tame removed Rush’s portrait, folded it up and dumped it on the ground.
She declined to return Daily Mail Australia’s repeated calls to her.
The poster’s removal did not go unnoticed by Australia Day Council organisers, whom Daily Mail Australia has been told were informed by Ms Tame that she had removed the portrait herself.
The portrait remained absent for the remainder of the event until all of the other portraits were removed by event organisers.
The display featured photos of each winner of the award since 1960.
The portraits were displayed at the Crowne Plaza, the hotel for all of this year’s Australian of the Year nominees and their guests before Monday night’s award ceremony at the National Arboretum.
A portrait of this Ms Tame was added to the display of recipients following her award win.
Rush had been honoured with the award in 2012 for his contribution to the arts.
2021 winner Grace Tame is pictured (top right) alongside every Australian of the Year except Geoffrey Rush
Grace Tame went up. Geoffrey Rush came down
Grace Tame is a sexual assault survivor who has dedicated her life to helping other survivors tell their stories
Geoffrey Rush arrives at the Supreme Court of New South Wales on April 11, 2019 in Sydney. He was awarded a record payout over a defamatory article
Eryn Jean Norvill arrives at the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 2019. The trial judge did not regard her as a credible witness
Ms Tame received her award for campaigning against laws that prevented sexual assault victims from speaking out about their experiences.
The 26-year old was sexually assaulted by a high school teacher when she was just 15.
The first Tasmanian to ever be named Australian of the Year, Ms Tame has become a key voice on social issues – including calling for a change to the Australia Day date.
She was accompanied to Canberra by her boyfriend Max Heerey, who proudly took to Instagram after the awards night to boast about dating an ‘incredible lady’.
Before the ceremony, the pair took the opportunity to have a dig at the government’s climate change stance – with Mr Heerey posting a video on his Instagram showing Ms Tame walking up behind Prime Minister Morrison, with the caption: ‘Creeping up like climate change’.
The Instagram story – which Ms Tame also later shared to her own page – included an emoji of a Christmas stocking full of coal, and the word ‘aloha’ – in reference to Mr Morrison’s controversial trip to Hawaii last year at a time when bushfires raged across Australia.
In an emotional acceptance speech, the newly named Australian of the Year detailed her remarkable fight for justice against her high school teacher.
Ms Tame was bullied and vulnerable with no self-esteem when she confided in maths teacher Nicolaas Bester, 58, at the elite St Michael’s Collegiate School in Hobart.
She told him about an incident when an older child had forced her into a cupboard and told her to undress before molesting her.
Kate Winslet and Australian actor Geoffrey Rush. Rush received a record payout over defamatory articles that wrongly claimed he had acted inappropriately
Geoffrey Rush (right) was at the peak of his fame when defamatory articles ruined his career, a court heard
Australian of the Year Grace Tame was honoured as Australian of the Year
Bester saw an opportunity to pounce.
‘He then introduced the actual sexual abuse by recreating that scene that I had described to him of my childhood trauma,’ she recalled.
The predator locked Ms Tame in a cupboard and molested her.
From there, Bester groomed the youngster by exposing her to films which glorified relationships between young women and older men.
‘Discussion of child sexual abuse is uncomfortable. But nothing is as uncomfortable as abuse itself,’ she said.
‘I lost my virginity to a paedophile. I was 15, anorexic. He was 58, my teacher.
‘For months he groomed me, then abused me every day: Before school, after school, in my uniform, on the floor. I didn’t know who I was.’
Wanting to speak out about her ordeal but blocked by the law, Ms Tame became the first woman in Tasmania to win the right to publicly name herself as a rape survivor.
Prior to her legal victory, Ms Tame was barred from speaking publicly about what she had experienced – despite her jailed abuser being able to openly tell his story, had he wanted.
Ms Tame decided to get a tattoo when she was 19 to represent her survival. It reads: ‘Eat my fear’.
