Imam Wadood Janud was just wrapping-up a vigil for the victims of the Christchurch shootings — a day after the massacre — when a ute smashed into the gate of his mosque in South Brisbane.

Key points: Only 21 people have ever been convicted of state-based hate crime laws

Only 21 people have ever been convicted of state-based hate crime laws A NSW Police unit specialising in hate crime only heard of a prejudiced attack when reading about it online

A NSW Police unit specialising in hate crime only heard of a prejudiced attack when reading about it online Concern raised about how hate crime is tracked and analysed

"He shouted profanity and abuse," Imam Janud told Background Briefing. "Then he rammed his ute twice at the gate."

Children, who had gathered on the lawn outside the Baitul Masroor Mosque, ran in every direction.

The driver then reversed his ute and drove away but the torrent of abuse didn't stop.

"Even while he was driving off he was shouting and cursing, 'Go back to your country, you guys don't belong here!' There was absolutely no doubt that he was referring his hatred to Muslims," said Imam Janud.

The victims, including Imam Janud, believe this was a hate crime. But the next day at a joint press conference with the Islamic Community, the police said otherwise.

"Sadly overnight, police picked up a gentleman for drug driving. He did call out some words at the people who were inside the mosque," said Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart.

"Please do not think that this was born out of hatred," he said. "We can never legislate against stupidity. And that is the truth of it.

"Please do not be afraid because this was not anything that could be claimed as a hate crime."

Hate crime is very rarely prosecuted in Australia. Only three people have ever been convicted in Queensland, while none have been convicted in New South Wales or South Australia since those states introduced laws against certain types of vilification in 1994 and 1996 respectively.

Laws vary from state to state but generally are meant to prevent vilification or the incitement of violence against people based on factors like race, religion or sexuality. In total, only 21 people have ever been convicted of breaking them.

Queensland police instead charged the man with wilful damage, driving a motor vehicle while suspended, and public nuisance under the Criminal Code.

Those offences carry a potential five-year sentence, whereas a vilification charge would result in a maximum of six months.

Former race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane says incidents of racist abuse are easily dismissed.

Police make a show of force during an anti-Muslim rally in Parramatta in 2015. ( AAP Image: Dean Lewins )

"The history of hate and racism tells us that any kind of violence or hatred cannot be separated from banal or low levels of prejudice and discrimination," he said.

"Hate speech leads to political violence if you allow it to escalate.

"It's absolutely necessary for our society to send a message that it's not in any way acceptable and should be held accountable under the law."

He calls it the pyramid of hate crime.

Life on the pyramid

"I had my earphones in, I was daydreaming and then I just got punched. I didn't see her face, I didn't see her come, I didn't see her go. She just ran away."

Hanan Merheb was one of four Muslim women who were punched in the face near the University of Technology in May 2017.

"The other people who were punched were also wearing the scarf, that kind of connected the dots for me," she says.

She says the attack wasn't the only shocking thing that day. The reaction from bystanders was equally disturbing.

"It was a busy street, a main street, and there was only one girl who stopped to ask if I was OK," she said.

"No-one else stopped to ask if we were okay."

Mariam Veiszadeh says anecdotally there has been an increase in Islamophobic attacks. She is the founder of Australia's Islamophobia register, a platform designed for Muslims to report and analyse suspected hate crimes.

"Often what I would hear back from authorities, from people in positions of influence, is that we're certainly not seeing that data on our end," she said. "We're not seeing an increase in these reports coming through to police or to any other hotline."

In the course of her work, she met with one of the few police units meant to be analysing and tracking crimes motivated by prejudice.

Police unit only hears about a racist attack after it's written about online

After the Cronulla Riots, NSW Police attempted to prevent lower-level hate crimes from escalating to more serious violence, protecting individuals and communities at risk. This led to the creation of a secretive department called the Bias Motivated Crimes Unit.

Ms Veiszadeh said in her dealings with the unit she found, "they were under-resourced, unable to tackle the multifaceted issues that we were bringing to them".

In 2017, a Chinese-Australian woman named Lina was punched in the face by a man and told to "get out of [his] country", while waiting at a traffic light in the Sydney suburb of Burwood.

Despite Lina reporting the attack to police, the Bias Motivated Crimes Unit was not informed. They only learned about it a month later through an online article.

Professor Gail Mason from the University of Sydney gained rare access to the inner workings of the Bias Crime Unit within NSW Police. ( ABC News: John Stewart )

Gail Mason, a professor of criminology from Sydney University says policing hate crime in Australia is considered a low priority.

"This incident suggests that there are internal processes here, they're not all working as effectively as they could be for identifying strong evidence of a biased motive," said Professor Mason.

"Whilst there is data that has been produced by the bias crime unit to show how many incidents have been identified as a bias crime, we don't know how many are being missed."

A NSW Police spokeswoman said in a statement the unit is supported by the counter-terrorism and special tactics command intelligence unit — and that every officer has training and understanding of bias crime.

If we do not effectively track and analyse minor incidents, according to Mr Soutphommasane, it can lead to a statistical black hole.

"If we are to deal with any social ill or problem in our society it's important that we are able to quantify it," he said.

"Right now we are unable to quantify just how prevalent hate speech or hate crimes are because we don't collect data on how frequently it's happening.

"We should be very concerned about what's happening right now and the events in Christchurch, New Zealand, which involved an Australian white supremacist, demonstrate to us where this can all lead."