When homophobic slurs were scrawled onto an overpass near a busy Darwin road last month, community members responded by painting over the offensive message with a rainbow.

Police charged the man who allegedly wrote the slurs with vandalism offences.

But under the Northern Territory's current Anti-Discrimination Act, the alleged perpetrator faced no consequences for vilifying the LGBTI community.

That could soon change after the government released a discussion paper aimed at modernising the Act, which was created in 1993.

The changes could see the introduction of anti-vilification laws in relation to sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, religious belief, disability or race.

New laws would allow the Territory's Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Sally Sievers to act on more complaints. ( ABC News: Mike Donnelley )

Such laws would have also allowed the Territory's Anti-Discrimination Commission to act on complaints about a video game app that appeared to encourage users to kill Indigenous Australians.

"(It) had absolutely atrocious things like actually hunting Aboriginal people," the NT's anti-discrimination commissioner Sally Sievers said.

"And we got lots of calls and lots of mentions about that but because we didn't have vilification legislation, all we were able to do was refer those people off to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

"So we think it's timely the Northern Territory has vilification legislation, but not just on race but a number of the attributes under the legislation," Ms Sievers said.

Other proposals in the discussion paper could see the removal of exemptions that currently allow discrimination to take place without justification.

For example, religious schools whose doctrines do not support LGBTI relationships can exclude job seekers who identify as LGBTI.

A screen still from Survival Island 3: Australia, a game in which players can kill Aboriginals with weapons. ( YouTube: Hunt It )

The discussion paper suggests an alternative approach that would require religious schools to justify the need for an exemption, which would be assessed by the Anti-Discrimination Commission.

Another example of discrimination currently enshrined in the Act relates to assisted reproductive treatment (ART), including IVF.

"Providers of Assisted Reproductive Treatment services in the NT are (currently) permitted to discriminate against people on the basis of sex, gender identity or marital status," the discussion paper states.

It suggests amending the Act to remove the exemption that permits that discrimination.

The discussion paper also suggests changing the name of the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner to the Equal Opportunity Commissioner.