At 7 o’clock this Friday morning, the Cairns Tropical Writers’ Festival will launch its program with a thought-provoking conversation over breakfast, featuring Sydney Lawyer, Michael Bradley in conversation with Grace Tame.
Michael Bradley is the managing partner of Marque Lawyers in Sydney, practising in media and human rights law. Michael has worked with dozens of sexual violence survivors in recent years, helping them navigate the legal system’s ill-equipped responses to their suffering, observing their experiences and listening to their feedback. His clients have included Grace Tame and “Kate”, the deceased complainant of alleged rape by former Attorney-General Christian Porter. Through this experience, he was appointed the Chair of the Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy Initiative and a director of The Grace Tame Foundation.
He has written a book on the subject, called “System Failure: The Silencing of Rape Survivors’ which was published in Monash University Publishing’s “In the National Interest” series in 2021. The book lays out a compelling and urgent case for fundamental reform, lest we continue to fail survivors as wholly as we have so far.
Michael will be joined on stage by 2021 Australian of the Year, Grace Tame. A survivor-advocate for victims of sexual assault, particularly those who were abused as children, Grace worked tirelessly alongside the #LetHerSpeak campaign and in 2019, obtained a court order so she could speak out publicly, under her real name as an abuse survivor.
This helped drive the momentum to overturn an archaic law that prevented victims from speaking publicly. A leader of positive change, Grace Tame’s advocacy overturned the victim gag laws in Tasmania and across the country, to allow sexual abuse survivors to be able to tell their own stories legally.
Sharply intelligent, deeply felt, and – surprisingly – often blisteringly funny, this breakfast will offer a constructive and optimistic vision for a better future for all of us.
Grace Tame will also appear at the Cairns Tropical Writers’ Festival, in conversation with the committee Chair, Jules Steer. Hear Grace’s story, in Grace’s own words, on Grace’s terms on Sunday afternoon from 3-3:45 pm at the Pullman Cairns International.
Book your tickets to the Cairns Tropical Writers Festival.
To read more about the Cairns Tropical Writers Festival.
