South Asians most targeted by racial abuse, police hate crime data reveals

It has been one and a half years since Auckland bus driver Rajnish Trehan was told by a violent and angry passenger he was a servant in Aotearoa before the man smashed out four of his teeth - an incident not treated as a hate crime by police.

By Lucy Xia of rnz.co.nz

People of South Asian descent have copped the most hate as victims of reported racist abuse in New Zealand, according to the police's latest hate crime data - with 4767 hate incidents reported involving South Asian victims in New Zealand between January 2022 and October 2025.

More than four years since the beginning of a $10.4 million initiative - Te Raranga, aimed at helping police officers better respond to hate-motivated offending and collect hate incident data following the Christchurch mosque attacks - police said they are continuing to work to mitigate hate-motivated offending over time.

Trehan, who was punched in the jaw by a passenger who told him "You're in my country, you're my servant" in September 2024, said the trauma still haunts him today.

"You can heal yourself physically, but when you get emotionally hurt, it's very hard to come out [from] those emotions," he said.

Trehan said he was unable to eat properly for half a year and had to get dental treatment for the dislocated teeth.

He had since left his job on public buses to drive school buses instead.

Trehan said his daughter, who was just five at the time, hugged him tight and would not let him leave the house for several days following the attack.

He said he told police about the racist comments, but was not aware of them recording it as a hate incident.

Trehan's attacker Paki Keepa was sentenced to one month of home detention on December 19, 2024, and police confirmed that the crime was not treated as hate-motivated.

"This determination was based off inquiries made into the circumstances of the assault, including speaking with a witness," police said in a statement.

Trehan said there was no justice in the outcome.

"It was very hard for my family to digest this thing, what has happened to us, so it's not proper justice [that] has been done, because something needs to be done very strongly ... regarding in future also, if these things happen [again]," he said.

Trehan said he had experienced several instances of racist verbal abuse on the job in the months following the attack, and now, after leaving his old job, he continued to see racism towards South Asians in his neighbourhood in Papakura, including people throwing stones at the homes of South Asian families.

Police data showed nearly 80% of the 22,069 hate incidents reported between January 2022 and October 2025 related to racial discrimination. South Asians (4767), Asians (2616), People of Colour (1884) and Māori (1427) were the most targeted.

While Asians were around 17% of New Zealand's population (2023 Census), South Asians alone made up 27% of the victims of reported racial incidents.

The data showed 5.3% (1187) of the total number of hate incidents in this period had resulted in court action.

An Auckland social worker of Indian descent, who was punched in an unprovoked racial attack in Aotea Square last year, said he felt police put "minimal" effort into investigating his case, and also lacked empathy.

The man in his twenties, who did not want to be named, recalled hanging out with a friend outside Aotea Centre one evening when he noticed a man shouting "F** off, go back, you don't belong here", before making eye contact with him and approaching to punch him in the face.

He said that straight after punching him, the man confronted another South Asian male in the area.

"It did feel like on reflection, there was a huge substance factor there, then the behaviour was followed by whatever racial bias and hate this person had, again - those words were big," he said.

He said while police did take note of the racial comments and recorded it as a hate incident, they did not ask too many questions about that aspect of his experience.

"It felt like they lacked empathy, like the fact that I had gone through this, and I'm sure they see a lot of worse things daily, but it would have been nice if they … if there was a little bit more of a human touch to how they approach it.

"They were just kind of asking me questions to tick-box their report," he said.

He said police called him for a welfare check-in after a few days, but closed his case within weeks, saying they did not have footage of the offender's face.

Police said to RNZ in a statement only one camera yielded footage.

"This footage was unclear and did not capture the offender or the incident clearly, leaving police unable to make an identification.

"Unfortunately, there were no further lines of enquiry for police to progress our investigation".

The man said he felt horrible that police closed the case with "minimal" effort, when considering the number of cameras available to check in the Aotea Square area.

He said police were not giving enough attention to hate incidents, which were significant for individuals who experienced them.

"Compared to a stabbing, it was a lot more minor, but if I now look at it from a racial lens, it makes me mad, because I know there's so much hate, and it's worse that it happens in person and physically and tangibly, but there's also a massive online component to the South Asian hate, that I experienced as well - and I feel like there's a huge factor of both of them playing in together," he said.

Meanwhile, Mount Roskill MP Carlos Cheung - whose electorate has over 50% of its population born overseas - said he was not surprised by the recent data and had heard lots from people experiencing hate speech and racism.

He said he was aware of constituents not reporting to police their experiences, and fears that the number of hate incidents was under-reported.

"In order to address the issues, we need more accurate data, so we can address the problem, so we should encourage people to report to the police, no matter how big or how small the issues," he said.

When asked whether he would advocate for hate crimes to be made a standalone offence, in his capacity as an Asian MP with a diverse electorate, Mr Cheung said that was not something an electorate MP could answer.

He said he had been talking to police regularly about how to promote social harmony.

Meanwhile, hate targeting immigrants, particularly South Asians, had become increasingly visible with far right demonstrations in New Zealand and overseas - including the anti-immigration protest led by the Freedom and Rights Coalition in Auckland in January, and two Sikh parades disrupted in South Auckland and Tauranga.

Labour Party MP and former ethnic communities minister Priyanca Radhakrishnan said the latest police data on hate incidents and its impact on the South Asian community was alarming, both in a global context, and in New Zealand's own context of the mosque terror attacks in 2019 - and that things were not getting better.

When asked whether her party would look into hate speech law reforms and making hate crimes standalone offences, Radhakrishnan said Labour would have a focus on improving diversity and inclusion, and strengthening social cohesion.

The Law Commission was looking into whether it should reform hate speech laws under the previous government, but Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith ordered it to stop in 2024, saying it would undermine free speech.