Aborigines fear attacks by extreme right-wing groups such as the Ku Klux Klan following a spate of incidents suggesting membership of racist organisations is increasing.
In the town of Mossman in the northern state of Queensland, three Aborigines recently claimed to have been beaten up by men wearing white hoods similar to those worn by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Australia has branches of the KKK, which was responsible for lynchings and other racist attacks in the United States in the 1960s.
In another Queensland town, Ingham, a young Aborigine told police that a car full of white men tried to run him over in a park. Meanwhile, a University of Queensland study found a 'worrying pattern of racialised vigilantism' in Australia.
Police in Casino, New South Wales, are on heightened alert after an alleged meeting of the KKK last month. A group of men were spotted dressed in KKK-style white robes, holding hands around a burning oil drum in a local park. Police also discovered what looked like a KKK cross scraped into the ground.
Several black families have received threatening letters, walls have been daubed with racist graffiti, and there have been reports of wooden crosses set alight at night outside a nearby Aboriginal community.
The incidents follow the conviction last month of a local man, Colin Houston, 51, for offensive behaviour and carrying a weapon. Houston, who was fined A$800 (HK$3,200), threatened a 26-year-old Aboriginal man with a baseball bat while dressed in a KKK robe and hood.