The petition reached 25,000 signatures. The post got 24.5 million views on X. The URL was disgracetame.com. The demand: strip Grace Tame of her Australian of the Year honour and charge her with incitement.
The man who launched it—Avi Yemini, Rebel News correspondent—was convicted in July 2019 at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court of unlawful assault against his ex-wife. He threw a chopping board that struck her on the forehead. He was also found guilty of using a carriage service to harass her on three occasions and breaching a personal safety order. He was fined $3,600. In 2022, New Zealand denied him entry because of the conviction.
His target: the woman Australia made Australian of the Year for surviving sexual abuse and refusing to stay silent about it.
Nobody checked.
The Chain
Within 48 hours, the politicians lined up.
Pauline Hanson called for ASIO to investigate Grace Tame. “Grace Tame’s support of a global intifada should be a terrifying trigger for ASIO and other police agencies to investigate who she’s hanging out with.”
Hanson has appeared on Rebel News. Yemini filmed her at the Bondi memorial. She knows who he is. She also knows what she told ABC radio when she was appointed co-chair of the Family Law Inquiry: that women fabricate domestic violence stories in family courts. She called them “liars.” The CEO of No to Violence called her statements “incorrect, ill-informed and dangerous.”
She didn’t check.
Barnaby Joyce demanded Tame be stripped of her honour. He lectured about “the harmonious nature of Australia.”
Joyce has an unresolved sexual harassment complaint from Catherine Marriott. He has been accused of verbally abusing a female staff member inside Parliament House. He was placed on the Cabinet Taskforce on the Status of Women despite the allegations.
He didn’t check.
Bridget McKenzie said Tame should be “prosecuted by police for inciting hatred.” She escalated the demand from stripping an honour to criminal prosecution—of a woman whose entire public life has been about prosecuting men who hurt women.
She didn’t check.
Tim Wilson attacked Tame publicly. Wilson was formerly Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, appointed specifically to champion free speech. When free speech was exercised by a woman at a protest, he wanted her punished for it.
He didn’t check either. But his problem isn’t the criminal record. It’s the mirror.
The Daily Mail tweeted the petition numbers to millions of followers across both @DailyMail and @DailyMailAU. They reported the signature count. They didn’t name the petition’s author. They didn’t mention his conviction. They laundered a Rebel News campaign into mainstream news.
They didn’t check.
The Pattern
Count them. The three loudest voices calling for action against a sexual abuse survivor:
A man convicted of assaulting his ex-wife.
A woman who publicly called domestic violence victims “liars.”
A man with an unresolved sexual harassment complaint against him.
This is not coincidence. The people most hostile to women who speak are the people with the most to lose when speaking is normalised.
Rita Nasr, writing in Women’s Agenda, identified it precisely: “Grace Tame is celebrated when she is the victim. She is punished when she is the activist.”
She was made Australian of the Year for refusing to stay silent about sexual abuse. She was targeted for refusing to stay silent about Palestine. The defiance was the same. The only thing that changed was the subject.
Grace Tame’s reply to Hanson’s call for an ASIO investigation:
“I can tell you now Pauline, I hang out with a bunch of neurospicy sexy queers and culty cyclists.”
Nobody needed to defend her. But someone needed to check who was leading the campaign against her.
Nobody did.