Hateful business … Post-Christchurch … Post-Colombo … Australia starved of nationwide information and data about the extent of hate crimes … Lack of a strategic approach by law enforcement, even as abuse of minorities is rising … USA and UK comparisons … Janek Drevikovsky gets to grips with the problem of assembling a national database of hatred, harassment and threats 

Then there was the Easter bombings of churches and hotels in Colombo, motivated by reprisal and religious hatred. 

Australia’s Director General of Security, Duncan Lewis, told a senate estimates committee that everything is under control and that while right wing extremist is real, it was not any more of a security issue than Islamist extremism. 

“The events of Christchurch … don’t really change the calculus here,” Lewis told the committee. 

“If you have a look at the terrorist attacks that have occurred in this country over the past five years … there have been seven attacks and 15 thwarted attacks.”

He didn’t think there was a need to shift the focus so that more resources were concentrated on dangerous right wingers, neo-nazis, white supremicists and their counterparts on the extreme left.  

Actually, the problem for ASIO and other agencies is that in Australia there is insufficient data collected about expressions of violent hatred, or “hate crimes”. 

In a knee-jerk response to Christchurch, the government introduced the Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material Act which was passed with ALP support, yet it is probably of limited utility.  

In a campaign known as the “Christchurch Call” the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron are leading a meeting on May 15 in Paris to press tech and social media companies to eliminate violent extremism online. 

Hate crime is understood to mean any criminal activity motivated by hatred, bias or prejudice, and directed at people on the basis of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender identity. 

In the United States hate crime appears to be increasing, with antisemitic incidents surging by 57 per cent in 2017, according to the US Anti-Defamation League.

Unlike the US, Australia has no coordinated, national database tracking incidents of hate crime. Instead, monitoring is done by a patchwork of different groups, which don’t communicate with one another. 

This is similar to the situation in New Zealand, where after the Christchurch shooting it emerged the government keeps no records of hate crime.

In NSW, Queensland and Victoria, for instance, state police do note offences that contain a hate-element, and collate those reports into anonymised data. 

Other Australian states and territories, however, do not appear to have special records for hate-based offending, and do not publish data. 

Even where police do track hate crime, resources for data collection are often scant. Gail Mason, a law professor at the University of Sydney, has reported that NSW’s Bias Crime Unit cut its staff from four to just one officer in 2017. 

Nationally, the Australian Human Rights Commission tracks complaints under the Racial Discrimination Act and notes incidents of racial hatred. There were 24 such complaints between July and October 2018. 

But the AHRC does not appear to track complaints involving other types of discrimination, and does not collate hate crime data more generally.  

Community bodies also gather data, but tend to monitor hate crimes perpetrated against victims within their community. For example, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry reports annually on incidents involving antisemitism, including antisemitic hate crime. 

The Online Hate Prevention Institute and the Islamophobia Register perform similar roles in different areas. 

In all cases, academics think the data that does exist is simply too unreliable. Professor Mason cautioned in her recent review of data held by the NSW police that the sample size was simply too small to show trends.  

Without a bigger sample, it’s difficult to know if the data is showing the full picture – and easy for policy-makers to discount its importance. 

“We really don’t know enough. There are problems of consistency in the data,” Mason told Justinian. “We don’t have effective tools and we need good data.” 

Clearer data may point to areas where new legislation is needed, Prof. Mason added. 

She argued there were “gaps in the law” when it comes to hate crime, and that we should consider behaviour which, though currently lawful, should be criminalised. As an example, she pointed to laws introduced in NSW last year, which made it illegal to incite hate-based violence, even when the inciter did not behave violently themselves. 

Deakin University academic Matteo Vergani agreed that data would improve our response to hate crime. 

“The public discourse is at the moment stuck between those who think hate speech should not be further criminalised in the name of free speech and those who want to protect minorities. 

The data can help understand exactly how to bring forward the discussion and acknowledge the harm that is being done.” 

Vergani suggested data could be used to improve policing or to implement targeted preventative strategies. 

The AHRC’s Race Discrimination Commissioner, Chin Tan, recognised the importance of a national database. 

“National data about the prevalence of hate crime would be an important tool for communities, policy makers and for law reform. I welcome discussion about such a database and am aware that this is a priority issue in some communities.” 

Chin Tan, who was appointed to his current role by the government in October 2018 has adopted a much more low profile role as race discrimination commissioner than his predecessor Tim Soutphommasane. 

Law enforcement figures have also weighed in. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald former NSW deputy police commissioner Nick Kaldas criticised the lack of a national database. 

“If you cannot measure [hate crime], you cannot deal with it effectively. The FBI gathers data from more than 15,000 police agencies across the country on hate crimes and publishes a reasonably accurate, insightful annual report.”  

In fact, the FBI has been doing so since 1990, when Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act. 

Vergani, who is researching ways Australia can improve its hate crime data, was optimistic about creating a national reporting scheme, but it would take time.

“The first step would be about creating training modules based on international best practice. How to collect, identity and share data in a safe way, and including other forms of hate such as harassments and threats.” 

He imagined this would take place at the state level and involve both police and community groups. 

“We are trying to create consensus at this stage.” Later, different data collectors might begin collating the figures into a national snapshot. 

Race Discrimination Commissioner Chin Tan agreed that a partnership between civil society and government was a priority.  

“Such a database must be designed and implemented with community input so that it allows affected people to report and record hate crimes.” 

Professor Mason said that for constitutional reasons it would be difficult to force state police and other agencies to collect data. And even if it were possible, all data gatherers would have to cooperate for the figures to be useful.  

“Let’s assume it can happen or they agree, then you’d need a systematic and consistent approach to collecting the information,” Mason told us. 

She also argued one of the biggest barriers was victims’ reluctance to report hate crime, particularly when the police were involved.   

“There are high levels of mistrust amongst some minorities towards police, for example those that have received high levels of over-policing.” 

She said victims were often unaware hate crimes were, in fact, against the law. “Communities need to understand this is actually something they can report. You need community education.”

One solution to these problems would be to put community groups in the foreground of the data-gathering process. 

Under this approach, community organisations could facilitate between police and minorities, allowing victims to report hate crime through an online portal, from where data could be shared with police. Mason said this would “call for police and community stakeholders to build strong and sustained partnerships”.

Yet, relying solely on victims to come forward and report their experiences may be part of the problem. As Vergani explained, widespread under-reporting means current samples are likely inaccurate. 

Instead, he suggests researchers should approach victimised communities. The public debate around hate crime would itself lead to more research in this area. Vergani added: 

“The new think tank funded by the Victorian government, called CERCIS, is exactly about researching social harms in general in society. And this topic will be one of the examples.” 

Information is the key and much more needs to happen for society to be adequately protected against violent extremists and haters of all stripes.