Grace Tame has hit back at critics who condemned her reaction while meeting former Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
The 2021 Australian of the Year was captured last year serving major side eye to the then federal leader during her trip to Canberra to hand over her title to the 2022 recipient.
She politely met with Mr Morrison and his wife and posed for a photo.
While many praised Tame for the photo-up, the sexual assault survivor has spoken out against those who said she was ‘rude’.
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During a candid interview with The Project co-host Carrie Bickmore, Tame explained the reason behind her grimaced expression while standing next to the former leader, and she was by no means holding back.
“That was because he's a lying, rorting, secretive...you can fill in the blanks,” she said.
Tame, a fierce advocate of sexual assault survivors, said that the criticism undermines her work as an activist.
She said: “The moment, which was only lasted a matter of seconds where I frowned at the Prime Minister, if people are more upset by rudeness, which is subjective, than raping a child, that says an awful lot about what is wrong in society.
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“We continually, disproportionately point the finger of blame and shame at children and our people who are coping with abuse and who, yes, might abuse substances, they might misstep and stumble.
“Where is the proportionate shaming and blaming and questioning of the people who abuse them and hurt them in the first place?”
Most notably, last year, journalist Peter van Onselen slammed Grace Tame's attitude while meeting Mr Morrison in an article for The Australian.
He claimed that Tame was 'childish' for not smiling in the photo op and said she shouldn't have just not gone to the ceremony if she wasn't going to be courteous.
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However, the Daily Mail reported that following the criticism, Tame tweeted that if she were smiling at the PM, it would be ‘hypocritical’ given his stance on women's issues.
She wrote: “The survival of abuse culture is dependent on submissive smiles and self-defeating surrenders. It is dependent on hypocrisy
“What I did wasn't an act of martyrdom in the gender culture war. It's true that many women are sick of being told to smile, often by men, for the benefit of men.
“But it's not just women who are conditioned to smile and conform to the visibly rotting status-quo. It's all of us.”
Charisa Bossinakis