10/03/2026
Last week I had the honor of interviewing Grace Tame for an International Women’s Day conversation about justice, reform and what it will take to for women and girls.
While on stage, a core belief of mine was reinforced with a new sense of gravity: when we speak about lived experience, we must never forget the person behind the story.
Grace brings extraordinary insight, knowledge and expertise to the work of reform, accountability and justice.
In that moment, the immeasurable personal cost of that expertise was laid bare.
Returning to the ‘well’ of her experience as a human being costs something.
As the host, holding space for this conversation, I felt the injustice in that.
It was a powerful reminder that conversations about systems change must hold two things at the same time: structural analysis and human impact.
Change rarely begins with comfortable conversations.
It begins when someone is willing to say the thing that unsettles the room- to have the “difficult” conversations that ask questions systems would prefer not to answer.
During our conversation, Grace spoke with extraordinary candour, clarity and insight about the work behind, and still ahead, in legal reform, the power of language in legislation, and the uncomfortable reality that many systems still rely on survivors to carry the burden of change.
If a system requires the people it failed to fix it, the system is not balanced.
Balancing the scales begins with recognising lived experience as expertise, being willing to have difficult conversations, and holding structural analysis and human impact together.
We must design systems that centre safety, accountability and lived expertise from the beginning- not as an afterthought.
Not symbolically, but structurally.
Thank you to Grace Tame for her leadership in this space and for sharing her lived expertise, it was a privilege to be in the same room.
Thank you to Be.Bendigo for creating space for this important conversation, City of Greater Bendigo for the venue, and to everyone who showed up ready to listen, reflect and act.
