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Fierce, formidable and fearless, Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins arrived with one message for the Prime Minister and the nation's most powerful leaders: Act now or face the wrath of their generation.
Time's up.
They have become household names, heroes of their generation, but today they joined together to address a room full of Australia's most powerful political figures with electrifying energy, moral and intellectual clarity of what's needed to demolish the system that allows children and women to become victims of power abuse.
You could feel the electricity in Canberra as the most hotly anticipated Press Club address loomed. The fact that it became so difficult to get tickets speaks volumes about the seismic impact these women have had on our culture and political debate.
Timing is everything in politics. Here were two women who have spearheaded radical change in the national conversation on the treatment of women, stepping up in the dying days of the 46th Parliament of Australia with one mission: placing the treatment of women and girls back on the political agenda as the election looms.
The message was clear. They are not going to fade and be forgotten by a fast and furious news cycle that values headlines over substance. The plight of women was no longer a so-called "women's issue", to be dealt with as a side story.
They have broken every single written and unwritten rule established by a culture that has sought to silence the voices and experiences of women — to normalise the power abuse and the toxic culture.
Stepping up, they demonstrated once again why they have become compelling advocates, refusing to adhere to the business model that has kept women in their place for fear of retribution and rejection.
They told uncomfortable stories, called out times they felt leant on and silenced, they did not err or hesitate.
Tame reveals 'threatening' phone call
Grace Tame revealed that a senior member of an organisation funded by the government asked her in a "threatening" phone call not to say anything controversial about Scott Morrison while she was Australian of the Year.
Telling a packed room including senior cabinet ministers in the Morrison government she had "nothing to lose", Tame said she received the call in August last year. She said the caller was "asking for my word that I would not say anything damning about the Prime Minister on the evening of the next Australian of the Year awards.
"'You are an influential person. He will have a fear,' they said. What kind of fear, I asked myself?"
"And then I heard the words 'with an election coming soon'. And it crystallised — a fear for himself and no-one else, a fear that he might lose his position or, more to the point, his power."
Tame called out what she believed was an attempt to silence her.
Social Services Minister Anne Ruston has announced an investigation into Tame's claims.
But the question remains, whoever this person was, have we learnt nothing?
It is this very culture Tame has been calling out, a culture that thrives on fear and intimidation.
It is staggering to think that in August last year — after a year of reckoning — anyone could think this tactic would work. Read the room.
'I didn't want his sympathy as a father'
Brittany Higgins - who had only just the day before received an apology in Parliament from the Prime Minister - said she found some of Morrison's language over the course of last year "shocking and at times, admittedly, a bit offensive".
But she said that would not have mattered as much if his actions had demonstrated a commitment to change.
"What bothered me most about the whole 'Imagine if it were our daughters' spiel wasn't that he necessarily needed his wife's advice to help contextualise my rape in a way that mattered to him personally.
"I didn't want his sympathy as a father. I wanted him to use his power as Prime Minister."
And so we return to that word, power. How power is executed, how power is shared.
There was a time where if you told me two young women would sell out a National Press Club address and put the nation's political leaders on notice on violence against women and sexual harassment, I wouldn't have believed you.
Political strategists will pontificate that this issue isn't a "vote switcher". But what is clear is that the rules have been broken and a younger generation of women will not wait for permission to speak any longer.