In short:
The Tasmanian government is planning to update sentencing legislation so that people who commit crimes motivated by prejudice or hatred are proportionally sentenced.
Experts say current legislation does not allow for hate crimes to be easily brought up in Australian courts.
What's next?
The changes have been welcomed, but advocates fear they'll only make a difference if accompanied with improved tools and training for police.
The Tasmanian government is changing how people who commit hate crimes are sentenced in court.
A draft of legislation outlining new "aggravating factors" for sentencing has recently been released and is open for public consultation until March 23.
If a crime is committed with an aggravating factor, it can lead to a harsher punishment.
Currently in Tasmania, there is only one type of hate crime — a crime that has been motivated by racism.
But the draft bill lays out more attributes for inclusion, such as the victim being targeted because of their age, religious beliefs, language used, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation, disability or if they have a mental illness.
Zahra Anvari and her mother Gol Nazari allege they were attacked and suffered racist abuse in 2023. Tasmania Police have charged someone over the incident. (ABC News: Maren Preuss)
Tasmania has only one type of hate crime
Currently in Tasmania, there is one type of hatred — racism — that can be considered an aggravating factor in a crime.
No other state or territory is limited to racial hatred in this area of sentencing laws.
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The inclusion of racial hatred as an aggravating factor happened in Tasmania in 2017.
The change was introduced by former premier Peter Gutwein after repeated, increasing reports from Tasmania's multicultural community of racist attacks.
But despite the call to introduce the change, the frequency of racist abuse isn't reflected in Tasmania's courts.
According to the Sentencing Advisory Council, no-one has been convicted of a crime found to be aggravated by racism either before or since the 2017 law change.
That worries reform advocates who feel the justice system is not working as it should.
Sentencing provisions rarely used
Policing and hate crimes researcher Nicole Asquith said racism had never been recognised during sentencing because proving a motivation was notoriously difficult — and required a significant amount of extra work from police.
And there's a trend in Australian courts of that work not paying off.
A notable case interstate is the murder of teenager Liep Gony, where even racist slogans spray-painted on Gony's girlfriend's wall, and references to problems caused by Sudanese men, weren't enough to deem it a racially motivated crime.
Liep Gony's mother Martha Ojulo being comforted at a memorial for her son. The judge said she was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the crime was racially motivated, despite racist comments made before the 2007 fatal attack in Victoria. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
Tasmania Police confirmed during community consultation for a Sentencing Council review, that:
Requiring proof of subjective prejudicial motivation dissuades the police from identifying such evidence and/or raising it in court.
In contrast, the police representative stated that simply requiring evidence of demonstrated hostility or prejudice … would be easier to incorporate into police investigative and prosecutorial practices.
Professor Nicole Asquith. (ABC News: Jordan Young)
Professor Asquith said police currently tended to focus on charging people for standard crimes.
"[Tasmania police] are under so much pressure and interpersonal violence takes up so much of their workload that they just want to get through the job, get it reported, get it in the system, move that case along," she said.
But Professor Asquith also said it meant evidence of prejudice wasn't getting through to the courts. And that meant there was a lack of data to understand the scale of hate crimes in society.
"We don't know whether there's been an increase in hate crime or a decrease in hate crime, or if it's just the same,"
Professor Asquith said.
The Tasmanian Sentencing Advisory Council recommended broadening the focus of legislation to include impact, rather than just motivation. This would bring Tasmania in line with some other countries including the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
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'Chilling' hate crimes reflect values breach
The Sentencing Advisory Council said sentencing was an important way to condemn "attitudes and behaviours that are contrary to social values" and to acknowledge "the harm caused to both the victim and the broader community".
The council also said laws should allow for more severe punishment for offenders who "target groups and breach fundamental liberal values of acceptance and harmless difference".
"The ripple effect of a single incident of violence often extended across the victim-survivor's communities and creates a wider chilling effect on those communities' behaviours," the Tasmanian Prejudice Related Violence Working Group also noted as part of a review of the state's legislation.
"It can cause significant damage to social order and police-community relations."
So why are some sceptical of the changes?
Classify hate crimes in their own right
Some feel the government should simplify the issue further by incorporating hate crimes into the criminal code, rather than just an aggravating factor to a 'standard' crime.
"If there is an actual crime in the Crimes Act or the Criminal Code, then [police] have something to charge somebody on," Professor Asquith said.
She also said it would send a message that a hate crime was "very different from a random assault on a Friday night after people get too drunk".
"It actually affirms to the victim that they are seen, they are heard, they are recognised when they have something that is assault with motivated hate or animus or prejudice."
Western Australia is the only Australian state or territory to take this step, but only for racial prejudice.
Tasmania's Attorney-General Guy Barnett. (ABC News: Ebony ten Broeke)
In a statement, Attorney-General Guy Barnett said the government "wants Tasmania to be a safe and inclusive where all members of the community are secure, valued and supported".
"The Tasmania Law Reform Institute (TLRI)'s Report into Racial Vilification and Racially Motivated Offences considered a sentence aggravation provision to be the most effective instrument for addressing racially motivated offending in Tasmania.
"The TLRI Report recommended against the introduction of standalone hate crime offences.
"That is why, our government has accepted all of the recommendations made by the Sentencing Advisory Council in their final report into Prejudice and Discrimination as Aggravating Factors in Sentencing.
"To implement these recommendations, we are progressing amendments to the Sentencing Act 1997 to ensure sentencing takes into account the aggravating factor of targeted, hateful or prejudicial offending."
Better police tools needed
Long-time LGBTQIA+ activist Rodney Croome is among those feeling the changes are only symbolic unless police systems are improved.
He wants to see Tasmania Police "recognising, recording and gathering evidence when a crime is motivated by prejudice, discrimination or hate".
"There should also be community education campaigns about the deep trauma caused by hate crime against members of minority communities,"
Mr Croome said.
Professor Asquith said other countries had effective tools for police, such as a dedicated questionnaire that officers in the London Metropolitan Police Service used.
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"It asks a series of questions about, 'was the victim targeted,' 'are they a member of a minority group,' and, at the end, the system says 'this is a hate crime, or 'this isn't a hate crime'.
"So it doesn't rely on that first reporting officer to have all the knowledge that they require to actually process that case as a hate crime."
Professor Asquith said better police systems would take some pressure off victims to speak up about prejudice in crimes — with under-reporting another issue in marginalised communities.
She said many communities also sought preventative measures that "address hateful behaviours and harmful behaviours at an earlier age".
"It's about trying to increase the awareness so that possibly we don't have to go down the criminal justice route,"
she said.