Horrific and concerning examples of misogynistic and anti-Semitic comments made by Australian schoolchildren, some as young as year 5, have been laid bare at a hate inquiry sparked by the Bondi terror attack. <\/p>\n
Dr Sara Meger from The University of Melbourne told the Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion on Thursday she collected data from a group of 511 Australian teachers from around the country following the Bondi Junction stabbing to look at misogynistic and extremism views among young people. <\/p>\n
About 25 per cent reported having experienced some form of extremism or violence by students.<\/p>\n
In the study, some teachers gave specific quotes from students who openly discussed Nazi symbolism and hating Jews. <\/p>\n
In one example, a group of boys in year 10 were reported making rape jokes and stating they \u201cwish that Hitler was still alive\u201d and he had \u201ccompleted the job\u201d. <\/p>\n
On another occasion, a Muslim student shared the opinion that those of Jewish descent \u201cdeserved acts of terrorism\u201d, while others shared anti-Semitism about Jews, and about non-Muslim people in general, and shared their support for Palestine.<\/p>\n
The study also included teachers of students as young as year 5 and 6 expressing concern for hateful attitudes expressed by students. <\/p>\n
Dr Meger said the study\u2019s primary motivation was looking at gender attitudes following the Bondi Junction stabbing attacks that claimed the lives of five women and one man. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was designing this study, I wanted to be able to get some more qualitative information about how these behaviours or attitudes might be manifesting among young people,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think the independent, voluntary information provided by some of the teachers, indicates to us that this political polarisation is having very real world impacts on social cohesion at ages, perhaps even younger than we had anticipated,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The teachers were asked about any misogynistic attitudes that they might have seen expressed by students as well as extremist attitudes. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut most of the respondents tended to conflate misogynistic attitudes with extremist attitudes, which was also a surprising finding,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hate preachers watched \u2018very closely\u2019<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a commander of a high-risk terror offenders unit, who remained anonymous, told the commission on Thursday about their engagement with social media platforms to stamp out hate speech and hate preachers. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are occasions where social media platforms will engage with law enforcement. I think for me \u2026 the gap here is we have to ask for the information,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere would certainly be an opportunity for platforms to be proactive in providing intelligence to law enforcement, particularly when you\u2019ve got individuals that are talking about potential attack planning, building manifestos online.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose pieces of information would be critically important for law enforcement to be able to at least disrupt and that might be an early intervention point as well.\u201d <\/p>\n
The commission was told there had been incidents where the activity had been manifesting online but social media platforms had not taken the opportunity to report that to police.<\/p>\n
The commander told the inquiry that his unit treats hate preachers as presenting a \u201csignificant risk\u201d of influencing individuals and in turn contributing to the commission of terrorist or violent offences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith a number of the intelligence reports that we see come through our unit we understand that hate preachers do actually have quite an influence over individuals within that community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd whether that\u2019s from being online or whether that\u2019s from delivering it from a centre or whether that\u2019s delivering it from the lounge room, they certainly do have an impact on communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut certainly from our perspective, we watch that very closely to the point where if there is something that\u2019s pushed up online that we get access to, we look at every word.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past few years the unit has identified occasions where police have undertaken activity against these preachers, but there has been insufficient evidence to proceed with charges.<\/p>\n
However, this was prior to new anti-hate speech laws being brought in under section 93A of the Crimes Act, with the commander noting he believes since the laws were introduced hate preachers had tempered their language.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we base (that belief) on the fact that there were certain words said by individuals after October 7 in 2023, and when we look at the various anniversaries that occurred \u2026 in 2024 and in 2025, we saw a much tempered language.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fifteen people were killed in the Bondi Beach massacre on December 14, 2025, with dozens more injured.<\/p>\n
Naveed Akram, 24, has been charged with dozens of offences after allegedly participating in an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack.<\/p>\n
His father Sajid Akram, 50, was killed by police at the scene.<\/p>\n
The hearing continues, with a portion of it now to be held behind closed doors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Horrific and concerning examples of misogynistic and anti-Semitic comments made by Australian schoolchildren, some as young as 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