Victoria launches hate reporting tool that doesn't need police

A new confidential system lets Victorians report anti-LGBTQ+ hate, discrimination and conversion practices in minutes — and every report adds to the evidence.

Told by Claire Lawson · 9 October 2026

Victorians who experience or witness hate against LGBTQ+ people can now report it in a few minutes, without going to police.

The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission launched its Community Reporting Tool this week — a confidential system that accepts reports of hate speech and vilification, discrimination and harassment, and change or suppression (conversion) practices. Reports can be anonymous. You can report something that happened to you or something you saw happen to someone else.

Thorne Harbour Health, announcing the tool, said hate and discrimination against LGBTQ+ communities are rising. Victorian Minister for Equality Steve Dimopolous put it plainly: if you can't name it or count it, you can't fix it.

That's what the tool is for. Every report adds to the record of what too many Victorians already know they're living with — the slur on the train, the refusal at the counter, the thing you saw happen to someone else and didn't know what to do about. Not every incident is a police matter. Not everyone wants to make it one. But the pattern still matters, and now there's somewhere it can go.

The tool takes a few minutes. It doesn't replace a police report or a formal complaint to the Commission — it's a third option, for people who want their experience counted without starting a case.

What it does with those reports: builds the evidence base that policy and funding decisions are supposed to rest on. What it doesn't do: investigate individual incidents, take enforcement action, or follow up with you unless you ask it to.

So if you're deciding whether to report — ask yourself this. Do you want what happened to you, or what you saw, to show up in the data that tells the state how bad it's getting? If the answer is yes, the tool is live now.