Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has been given a taxpayer-funded podcast with the ABC after saying she could not get work following pro-Palestine comments.

The new series, Autistic AF with Grace Tame, premiered on the broadcaster's We Need To Talk series on Tuesday. 

Tame, 31, explores what life is like for women and gender-diverse people with autism, including her experiences with food and sound sensitivity, as well as 'masking'. 

'Masking is effectively hiding or changing your traits, needs or interests in order to navigate a world designed primarily for neurotypical people,' she told ABC presenter Yumi Stynes in the debut episode.

'The toll of masking can be catastrophic, because those needs still need to be met.

'I used alcohol and drugs as a coping strategy, which is sadly normalised and easily accessible. Now I turn to running and cycling to regulate my emotions.

'Exercise has been a really effective tool for emotional regulation and trauma recovery, and it also allows me to socialise in a way that doesn't require small talk.'

Tame, a survivor of child sexual abuse by a 58-year-old teacher, has championed legal reforms and advocated for survivors and human rights causes. 

Her new role at the ABC comes just months after she faced backlash for an interview with ABC Sydney Mornings host Hamish Macdonald in March.

Macdonald asked, on behalf of a listener, why she is 'selective in her outrage' after they said they had never heard her condemn or speak out about Israeli women who were raped and killed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. 

'I'm not going to sink to the level of … of entertaining any kind of propaganda, Hamish. Let's not do that,' Tame said.

'What's the propaganda included in that question?' Macdonald asked. 

Tame said: 'Those things have been debunked. Violence is happening on both sides, but this is not a fair fight. We're not talking about two equal cohorts, even marginally.'

Macdonald raised the findings of the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, which had concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe conflict-related sexual violence took place during the attacks.

When he asked whether that was 'propaganda', Tame appeared to walk back her comments, saying 'awful things are being perpetrated by both sides.' 

'But this is not about 'whataboutism'. This is not about selective outrage. I'm outraged by all of the violence. Clearly I don't support any of it,' she said.

Robert Gregory, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Jewish Association said he thought the ABC announcement was a joke at first.

'I simply could not believe that Australia's public broadcaster could be so tone-deaf,' he said.

'The question Australians should be asking is simple: with so many talented and respected people available, why did the ABC choose Grace Tame?

'This decision demonstrates a profound lack of judgment and a disregard for the concerns of many Australians, particularly within the Jewish community. 

'It reinforces the growing perception that ABC management is increasingly out of touch with the communities it is supposed to serve. ABC would have been aware of the distress this decision would cause to many Australians, and it therefore seems designed to generate controversy.

'It again raises the question of why Australian taxpayers are compelled to fund a national broadcaster whose decisions and content many Australians find deeply objectionable.'

The Daily Mail's political editor Peter van Onselen said the ABC has learned at least one lesson: 'don't allow her on air live.'

'Only the ABC could look at Grace Tame's recent history of on air controversies and still risk giving her another platform,' he said.

'Unless she agreed to keep the conversation within strict limits, which would sit rather awkwardly with her whole ethos of not being silenced, this looks less like brave programming and more like institutional amnesia.

'A pre-recorded podcast means there is an edit button if Grace can't help herself and mouths off inappropriately again. 

'That's sensible risk management, but it also rather gives the game away. The public broadcaster clearly knows the risks, and has chosen to manage them rather than avoid them altogether.

'The incident further underscores the need for the ABC to be called before the Royal Commission into antisemitism, as the Coalition has advocated.

'More broadly, it again raises the question of why Australian taxpayers are compelled to fund a national broadcaster whose decisions and content many Australians find deeply objectionable.'

Tame's new role with the ABC also follows her admission that she lost speaking bookings for the rest of this year following the comments she made about October 7.

'This is my last presentation for the year… due to an ongoing national smear campaign,' she told the No to Violence conference in Hobart in March.

'I have lost all my speaking for the foreseeable future. So many cowardly others capitulated. I think this will be a blip, and I'm tough; they can't outrun me, literally.'

That month, she spoke out against the visit of Israel's President Isaac Herzog during a protest in Sydney. 

She led a chant of 'globalise the intifada', a slogan supporting Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation but seen by some as offensive and inciting hatred. 

According to the American Jewish Committee, one of the oldest Jewish advocacy groups in the United States: 'The phrase is often understood by those who are saying and hearing it as encouraging violence against Israel, Jews and institutions supporting Israel.

'While the intent of the person saying this phrase may be different, the impact on the Jewish community remains the same.'

But Ben Jamal, leader of the UK’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said the phrase is used as a 'call for worldwide support for an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people through all means of legitimate resistance'. 

'That’s not a call for violence against civilians or Jewish people – and to say that is actually, in my view, a form of anti-Palestinian racism,' he told Middle East Eye.

A month later, the Grace Tame Foundation, formed in 2021 - the same year she won Australian of the Year, confirmed on social media it was closing. 

It said 'sustaining long-term funding for this work has become increasingly challenging'.

'Thanks to our campaign efforts, every jurisdiction in Australia has stopped naming the crime of 'persistent child sexual abuse' as a 'relationship',' a statement read.

'None of this would have been possible without Grace's fierce and uncompromising advocacy for survivors, and her determination to ensure the experiences of those harmed as children could no longer be ignored.'