Pressure for tougher laws against gay hate crimes after surge in dating app attacks

Premier Chris Minns is being pressured to broaden his hate speech laws to include sexuality and gender after a spate of violent crimes against gay and bisexual men, who have been lured to parks via dating apps and assaulted on camera for social media.

Minns revealed on Wednesday that he had asked the Attorney-General’s Department and the Cabinet Office to investigate potential tougher penalties for homophobic hate crimes.

However, there are calls for his hate speech laws, designed to combat antisemitism and criticised by some as too narrow, to also include protections for LGBTQ people.

An ABC investigation this week aired disturbing footage of men being lured with fake online profiles and assaulted, and alleged that some assailants had been inspired by the Islamic State.

“I want to make sure that we’re in a situation where police have got the resources, the DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions] has the resources that if someone is convicted of a crime like that, they can throw the book at them and they are subject to a significant jail penalty,” Minns said.

“I can imagine there’d be a lot of young people, a lot of gay people online who would ordinarily expect to meet someone in their community and do it in a safe way. To be targeted in this way, it’s a throwback to a shocking period in Sydney’s history, and it will not be tolerated in 2026.”

Potential reforms could include adding aggravating factors to existing offences or creating new offences to enforce tougher penalties.

A challenge for police is that many victims do not come forward for fear of being outed, although there have been dozens of prosecutions in WA, Victoria and NSW, Police Minister Yasmin Catley said.

In 2024, the Herald reported a string of suspected hate crime attacks by youth gangs, some under the guise of “pedo-hunting”, with the violent assaults filmed and posted on social media. Police sources said at the time many homophobic assaults were probably going unreported, as attackers targeted their own religious communities.

Independent MP Alex Greenwich, a staunch advocate for LGBTQ interests in the NSW parliament, said recently legislated hate crime laws, including the criminalisation of incitement of racial hatred, should also protect the LGBTQ community.

“We know that what starts as online hate and abuse can escalate to the type of physical violence we saw reported [by the ABC] yesterday,” Greenwich said.

“In NSW we have legislated some strong LGBTQ protections, but the sad truth is justice is expensive for victims, and we need to make sure the LGBTQ community have access to a dedicated legal centre, as proposed by the Inner City Legal Centre.”

Attacks against gay and bisexual men are part of a troubling trend years in the making, Equality Australia legal director Heather Corkhill said.

“For years, we have sounded the alarm about rising hostility toward our community, and yet the response has been woefully inadequate,” Corkhill said.

“Our community is understandably frightened and looking to the government for leadership and action. We welcome the premier’s unequivocal condemnation of these attacks and a commitment to do more.”

The state government ordered a review of protections against hate speech in February last year, which retired Supreme Court judge John Sackar, KC, handed to Attorney-General Michael Daley in November. It has yet to be released.

Sackar was also head of a world-first special commission of inquiry into historical LGBTQ hate crimes, which found evidence of bias in at least 25 unsolved deaths in NSW between 1970 and 2010.

Corkhill and Greenwich both called on the government to urgently release Sackar’s report into hate speech protections, which heard multiple submissions suggesting that if hate speech laws are to be strengthened, they should cover not only racial groups but also LGBTQ people.

LGBTQ health service ACON has urged gay and bisexual men in Sydney to take steps to ensure their safety when meeting people online, including by video-chatting before meeting, telling others where they are meeting and verifying identity first. A spokesperson said the organisation was aware of a consistent number of assaults in the past two years.

“ACON is working closely with the NSW Police Hate Crime Unit to inform local communities about risks to their safety and strategies to make sure police have the best possible response to victims of crime,” a statement from the organisation said.

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