Grace Tame: When acts of turpitude demand consequence

“Turpitude” is not a word often heard in everyday conversation. It is formal, almost archaic. Yet its meaning is precise and powerful: a baseness of character, a depravity, a serious departure from accepted moral standards. In legal contexts, “moral turpitude” refers to conduct so contrary to justice, honesty, or good morals that it shocks the public conscience.
It is a word that now demands renewed attention.

In 2021, Grace Tame was honoured as Australian of the Year. Her advocacy for survivors of sexual assault was courageous and consequential. As a survivor herself—groomed and raped by a teacher while still at school—she fought to overturn Tasmania’s gag laws, giving a voice to those who had long been silenced. Her story moved the nation. Her cause united it.
Moral clarity was, at the time, seen as her strength.

Which is why her recent public statements are so troubling.

In the wake of the October 7 2023 attacks—a day marked by the mass murder of civilians, including women and children—evidence emerged of widespread sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists and, in some cases, Gazan civilians who joined the atrocities. These were not isolated allegations. Investigations by the United Nations found “reasonable grounds” to believe that rape and gang rape occurred at multiple sites. The International Criminal Court has since included rape and sexual violence in its charges against Hamas leadership. Amnesty International has likewise documented these crimes.

This is not conjecture. It is established, corroborated, and grave.

And yet, in February 2026, Ms Tame was filmed at a rally in Sydney leading chants of “From Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada”—a phrase widely understood to call for the expansion of violent struggle against Israel and Jews everywhere.

When challenged, Ms Tame sought to deflect, suggesting alternative or benign interpretations of the term “intifada.” Such a defence is not merely unconvincing—it is disingenuous to the point of being offensive. Language matters. Words carry history, meaning, and consequence. “Intifada” is not an abstract concept; it is a term indelibly associated with waves of violence, including suicide bombings and the deliberate targeting of civilians.

To sanitise or reinterpret such language after the fact is to evade responsibility. It is to separate words from their well-understood meaning to avoid accountability for their use.

It is, in effect, an argument that intent can be divorced from impact—that one might invoke a term synonymous with violence and then retreat to a claim of harmless expression. To accept such reasoning would be akin to accepting a defence from a paedophile that their abuse was simply an expression of love towards a minor: a self-serving distortion so morally bankrupt that it collapses under the weight of its own absurdity and is unworthy of serious consideration in any civilised discourse.

In March 2026, during a radio interview, Ms Tame went further, asserting that accounts of sexual violence on October 7 had been “debunked” and declining to “entertain propaganda.”

In doing so, she did not merely express scepticism. She denied moral credibility to women whose suffering has been substantiated by serious international inquiry.

This is where the concept of turpitude becomes relevant.

Because the issue here is not political alignment. It is not even about Israel or Gaza as competing narratives. It is about a far more fundamental principle: do we believe women when they report sexual violence? And perhaps more importantly: do we believe some women, but not others?

The events of October 7 sit within a broader and deeply troubling pattern. The use of sexual violence as a weapon of terror is tragically well established in modern conflict—seen in Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and under the so-called caliphate of Islamic State.

Consider the case of Fawzia Sido, a Yazidi girl abducted by ISIS in Iraq in 2014 at just 11 years of age. She was trafficked, abused, and sold repeatedly over the course of a decade—moved across Iraq and Syria before ultimately being taken into the depravity of Gaza. There, she remained in captivity until her rescue in October 2024, in an operation involving Israel, the United States, and Iraq.

Her story is not unique. It is emblematic of a pattern: the systematic degradation of women in environments shaped by Islamic extremist ideology.

To dismiss the testimony of Israeli women on October 7, in the face of overwhelming and corroborated evidence, is not simply an error of judgment. It is a profound moral failure. It signals that empathy is conditional—that some victims are worthy of belief, while others are not.
Survivors of sexual violence often speak of the secondary trauma of not being believed—the sense of isolation, indignity, and despair that compounds the original crime. Since October 7, Israeli survivors have faced a profound mental health crisis. Studies have documented sharply elevated levels of post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and an increased risk of suicidal ideation among those directly exposed to the attacks. Survivors of the Nova music festival massacre have spoken of enduring psychological trauma, with experts warning that suicide can emerge as a delayed response to such extreme events.

The precise numbers remain contested, and responsible reporting demands caution. But the direction of travel is not in doubt: the psychological toll has been severe, enduring, and in some cases, fatal.

One might reasonably ask: what would it have meant for Ms Tame herself had her own testimony been publicly dismissed in such a manner? What would it have done to her sense of justice, dignity, and worth?

What if, instead of seeing her abuser held to account, she had watched him publicly feted and lauded—his conduct denied, minimised, or excused?

What despair might follow from such a profound inversion of justice? In the absence of recognition or accountability, might a victim feel driven to take matters into their own hands, or worse, turn that anguish inward?

Hypotheticals have their limits. But the principle is clear. Belief cannot be selective.

And when that position is taken by a figure whose national recognition rests upon advocacy for survivors, the contradiction becomes impossible to ignore.

It is not enough to say that Ms Tame has been controversial. Public life invites disagreement. Robust debate is a feature, not a flaw, of democratic society. But there is a line between debate and denial—between disagreement and dismissal of documented atrocity.
Crossing that line has consequences.

Not least because the title “Australian of the Year” is not merely an award for past achievement. It is a continuing symbol. Recipients are expected to embody values of integrity, respect, and leadership. The National Australia Day Council is clear: the honour may be reviewed or withdrawn where a recipient’s conduct brings the award into disrepute or undermines its standing.

That is not a trivial threshold. Nor should it be.

But it is a threshold that warrants consideration here.

For what message do we send if the nation’s most prominent advocate for survivors of sexual violence publicly dismisses the suffering of Jewish and Israeli women? What standard do we uphold if moral clarity is applied selectively, depending on the identity of the victim?

These are not abstract questions. They go to the heart of social cohesion, trust, and justice.

There has been no meaningful apology. No acknowledgement of error. Instead, there has been a doubling down—a persistence in language that many have rightly found offensive, dismissive, and deeply hurtful.
That, too, matters.

Because leadership is not defined by perfection. It is defined by the capacity to reflect, to listen, and—when necessary—to correct course.
We are all fallible. But we are also accountable.

The term “acts of turpitude” is not used lightly. Nor should it be weaponised for political ends. Yet there are moments when conduct falls so far short of expected moral standards that it demands to be named.
This is one of those moments.

Australia honoured Grace Tame for giving voice to the voiceless. That was right. It remains worthy of respect.

But with honour comes responsibility.

And when that responsibility is abandoned—when the principle of believing survivors is applied selectively, or not at all—the honour itself is called into question.

In this case, it is not merely called into question. It is rendered untenable.
Grace Tame should be stripped of her Australian of the Year Award. Not out of malice, but out of principle—and in defence of the very standard that honour is meant to represent.

I call on Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Burke, Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for the Arts, and the National Australia Day Council to exercise leadership in this regard—to decide, and to live with the consequences of their decision.

To retreat behind bureaucratic process or institutional distance on a matter so clearly grounded in principle would be a failure of leadership. Australians expect better—and are entitled to nothing less.

Conduct of this nature must attract sanction and consequence. Without it, standards erode, accountability fades, and the meaning of national honour is diminished.

This article was written on 13 April 2026. The media cycle has already moved on. That does not diminish the seriousness of what has occurred.

Conduct of this nature demands consequence—and it should be delivered.

Colonel Michael Scott CSC Ret’d is a former Australian army officer and the founder of The 2023 Foundation, an initiative dedicated to combating antisemitism.