A parliamentary inquiry is hearing evidence from religious organisations and community groups about proposed legislation that would ban all public displays of Nazi symbols.

Exceptions would be made for educational or historical purposes as well as other legitimate uses.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said the bill represented "a moment of truth" for the parliament and its passing would "make history".

"The time for action is now ... because fighting the ideology of mass murder and incitement to violent racism should never be a partisan issue," he said.

The legislation "will be a thunderous victory against those evil forces who wish harm", Dr Abramovich said on Thursday.

Anti-Semitism had risen to levels "not seen before" in recent years, especially with the appropriation of Nazi symbols by anti-lockdown protesters throughout the country during the pandemic, he said.

"Anti-Semitism in Australia is not history it is news."

Last year Victoria became the first state or territory to initiate legislation outlawing Nazi symbols, such as the swastika.

Labor's Walt Secord who introduced the bill, said 31 incidents of displays of Nazi flags were reported to the police in 2020, including one in a home close to a synagogue in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Newtown.

The hearing comes a week after a survey found nearly a quarter of Australians had little to no knowledge about the Holocaust, the genocide perpetrated by the Nazi regime that killed six million Jews during World War II.

That's despite Australia having one of the largest per capita number of Holocaust survivors in the world.

Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor Joseph Symond, 97, explained how the flagrant exhibition of swastikas in Australia in recent years had been "very disturbing" for Jews and others killed in concentration camps, including homosexuals, black people, the physically and mentally disabled as well as the Roma people.

"It ultimately brings back very vivid memories ... of the horror and suffering of my people ... and many others," he said.

"We are talking strictly about hate ... and that's what I'm fighting against."

Deputy NSW Police Commissioner David Hudson noted the "increased behaviour" of people espousing right-wing extremist ideology that extended to online activity, especially in regional areas, pointing specifically to Albury, Orange and the south coast.

He cited the example of a NSW man arrested in September in possession of a Nazi flag and a map of the state on his bedroom wall by counter-terrorism police over a plan to make a 3D-printed gun.

The federal government listed neo-Nazi, US-based group The Base as a terrorist organisation in November, making it a criminal offence to join it.

Australian Associated Press