Australia's longest-standing police unit tasked with policing hate crime was downgraded from four staff members to only one in 2017, police sources have told the ABC.

Further damning details about the resourcing of the NSW Police Bias Crime Unit are included in an explosive report titled Bias Crime Policing: The Graveyard Shift, which has been obtained by the ABC.

The report reveals how the unit was effectively left vacant between 2009 and 2013.

Its author, Professor Gail Mason from the University of Sydney, gained rare access to the inner workings of the secretive Bias Crime Unit within NSW Police.

She conducted in-depth interviews with 10 police officers who work in the area of bias crime in NSW.

She said the downgrading of the unit has been detrimental to its ability to properly monitor and analyse hate crime.

"What this does it it sends a very strong message to communities that the NSW Police Force don't take this crime seriously.

"[Some of the officers interviewed] said there was a view that the bias crime initiatives were seen as paying lip service to appease minority groups rather than it being a dedicated and strong commitment to the issue," Professor Mason said.

Professor Mason interviewed officers to uncover the inner workings of the secretive Bias Crime Unit within NSW Police. ( ABC News: John Stewart )

The NSW Bias Crime Unit is the only unit nationwide specifically tasked with policing bias crime.

Its work includes collating and analysing complaints of bias crime from the public, providing regular intelligence reports to local area command and training NSW police officers.

In 2015, the then assistant police commissioner, Nick Kaldas, upgraded the Bias Crime initiative to a formal unit of four staff members who specialised in policing hate crime.

However, two years later that unit was moved to the Fixated Persons Investigation unit, which is not focused on white supremacist threats.

Significantly, in 2017 bias crime was downgraded to only one officer.

"One of the implications of moving the bias crime unit into the fixated Persons Investigation Unit is that all of the expertise that the unit had previously built up for staff who had worked there for a number of years was then lost to the institution," Professor Mason said.

"That means that in establishing a new unit in a new area you have to actually acquire that knowledge again."

Several officers interviewed in Professor Mason's report have described NSW police's approach towards hate crime as tokenistic and the unit as an "unwanted secret", "the graveyard shift", and a "political inconvenience".

Professor Gail Mason interviewed 10 police officers for her explosive report. ( ABC News: John Stewart )

One of the interviewees was so disillusioned with the lack of commitment to hate crime, they said it would take a significant violent attack before hate crime is prioritised.

The officer is quoted as saying: "Nothing changes until somebody dies … until the day a white supremacist walks into a mosque."

"The biggest issue with NSW Police is we're run by old white men," the officer reportedly said.

"I think the direction in this organisation has always been to shut the minorities up.

"It's hard to say whether or not more resources would have been able to do anything about the Christchurch massacre because it's very difficult to know whether or not police could actually identify somebody like him and then intervene."

In response to questions from the ABC, a NSW Police spokeswoman sent a statement.

"For many years, NSW was the only Australian policing jurisdiction with a dedicated Bias Crimes Unit to oversee and act as subject matter experts to local police," the statement said.

"Since its inception in 2007, the unit has evolved many times to ensure it continually improves and increases its capability and services to the community.

"Every officer in the NSW Police Force has training and an understanding of bias crimes, and each police area command and police district plays an active role in investigating any report of bias crime."

People not taken seriously by police

In 2015, lawyer Lydia Shelly was the vice president of the Islamophobia register.

It was launched because Ms Shelly felt hate crime and hate speech against Muslims was not being investigated or monitored properly.

When the register started, Ms Shelly said she met with the NSW Bias Crime Unit a number of times, and her impression was that the unit was largely ineffective.

"In my respectful opinion, they were glorified statisticians," Ms Shelly said.

"They were not involved in an investigation that we could see that translated into any real action that would protect primary victims."

Ms Shelly said the Bias Crime Unit was never resourced properly. ( ABC News: John Stewart )

She described an example where her organisation collated screenshots from a number of Facebook accounts that included derogatory comments against Muslim women.

She said she gave those screenshots to the Bias Crime Unit, but they were dismissed.

"They said it didn't fit a bias crime report," she said.

"Those comments were, for example, that 'all Muslim women should be shot'. I think that would fall within a bias crime incident."

She said that based on her experience with the Bias Crime Unit, it was never resourced to deal with the problem seriously.

"Each time that we met with Bias Crime I walked away with a deep sense of frustration and that there was no political will within the organisation to deal with this problem," she said.

"And come 2019, we are still in the exact same place."

Ms Shelly said the register started to provide Muslims with a community-led avenue to report hate incidents.

"It started because people were not taken seriously when they went to police stations," she said.

"In some situations, they didn't even go to police stations, because they knew they weren't going to be believed."

'We will not take the situation any further'

A 23-year-old Sydney Jewish man said NSW Police did not look into his complaint when he reported being the target of regular antisemitic abuse between 2016 and 2018.

The man, who does not want to be identified for fear of death threats, said he has been subjected to constant attacks in the classroom at TAFE to the point where he felt his safety was being compromised.

The abuse escalated to regular antisemitic taunts in a Messenger chat and when the man arrived for class he was greeted with Nazi salutes, he said.

"I had students telling me as I entered the class, 'the Jew's here, it's time for a good old-fashioned Jewish bashing', which is you know … threatening assault," he said.

"I was not willing to return to the campus in fear of constant persecution from the students."

After a year-and-a-half of copping this abuse, the man said he lodged a formal complaint at his local police station.

"I basically sat down with an officer there and explained the entire situation," he said.

"I gave them names of students and especially the student who threatened to bash me."

However he said that a few days later he received a phone call from a police officer who told him they would not be taking this situation any further.

"He just said it's something that they won't do."

Taking matters into their own hands

Elsewhere in the country, members of minority groups nationwide have also reported a dismissive approach to reporting hate speech and hate crime.

Mr Kadri became disillusioned with police efforts to take hate crime and hate speech seriously. ( Supplied: @alikadri_au )

Some have decided to take matters into their own hands.

The spokesman for the Islamic Council of Queensland, Ali Kadri, started the #waragainsthate hashtag on social media to monitor hate speech.

He has encouraged members of the public to join him and take screenshots of hate speech online, post it on social media and submit those screenshots to the National Security Hotline online form, which is run by the Australian Federal Police.

"I'm trying to expose the hatred online, which is quite wild and I believe to be very dangerous and not taken seriously, so I'm trying to expose it," he said.

He said he had started the campaign because the Muslim community in Queensland had become disillusioned with police efforts to take hate crime and hate speech seriously.

"There is a general sense within the law enforcement agencies … they don't think that right-wing extremism is as much of a threat to Australia and Australian security as, let's say, Muslim extremism," he said.

"And it's sort of given these people a free rein to spread their hatred."

Following the Christchurch mosque massacre, Mr Kadri said it has become evident that hateful online speech poses a serious risk to national security.

"It has an impact, where certain people like the [alleged] terrorist in New Zealand … has been fed this over the years and he's told it's okay to say things online and threaten things online without repercussions and he has eventually done it."