Sexual assault survivor Grace Tame has spoken out about the moment she "stood up" to her abuser for the first time, saying she would never forget telling him he was a "monster" and "pure evil".
Addressing an audience at Adelaide Writers' Week alongside event director Jo Dyer and author Jess Hill, the 2021 Australian of the Year also provided further detail on a "threatening" phone call she first detailed publicly at the National Press Club last month.
At today's Writers' Week talk, entitled The Reckoning, Ms Tame opened up to the packed gathering about confronting the teacher who repeatedly raped her.
Ms Tame said while she was "terrified of this paedophile", she "stood up" to him four days before she reported him to police, telling him "he was a monster".
"I told him that, and I will always remember that, and you know what? So will he," she said.
Ms Tame was 15 and a student at St Michael's Collegiate School in Hobart when she was repeatedly abused.
"He'd never seen my true rage towards him, but as he sat in his office chair I pointed a finger at him, I was crying my eyes out, I started yelling and screaming and I told him exactly what I thought of him for the first time," she said today.
"Whenever I think I can't do something I remember this day — and I was terrified when I did this — but this is what I draw on when I need self-belief."
In the years since the man's conviction, Ms Tame has campaigned for changes in the way sexual assault is dealt with.
She told the festival audience that legal restrictions that prevented victims from sharing their stories had contributed to an "ecosystem of abuse".
"It's so messed up how society has all these layers of victim-blaming entrenched, codified at every level," she said.
Last month, Ms Tame appeared alongside Brittany Higgins at the National Press Club, where she alleged that a senior member of an organisation funded by the government had last year asked her to not say anything negative about the Prime Minister.
Today, she spoke further about that incident, saying "it wasn't an empty threat".
"I didn't share this at the National Press Club but do you know what the threat was, from that person who phoned me? It was that they wouldn't support the [Grace Tame] Foundation if I said something about the Prime Minister," she said.
Following Ms Tame's Press Club address, Women's Safety Minister Anne Ruston said the federal government had begun an investigation into the allegation.
