Andrew Little says the Government will tread carefully on any changes to our hate crime laws.

Little's today been appointed the new minister-in-charge of the response to the Royal Commission's inquiry into the Christchurch mosques attack.

The report's made 44 recommendations - all which have been accepted in principle by the Government.

Little told Heather du Plessis-Allan when it comes to hate crime, the inquiry talks about adding hateful motivation and a higher penalty to existing crimes like assault.

"One of the benefits of that is that when it comes to recording convictions and actually keeping a record of what are crimes motivated by hate, it is easier to record, but also to capture the more evil nature of that sort of criminality."

The laws will likely be similar to the UK law, as noted by the report. 

He says that Brenton Tarrant kept himself under the radar, which made it difficult for any of the agencies 

However, Little says the report has highlighted areas where changes can be made to limit chances of a repeat action, such as firearms license vetting. 

"That said, lone actors can be notoriously difficult to detect. And that's why they say, in the community, we all have a responsibility to ensure we're looking out for each other, protecting each other, but if we see weird behaviours, we're alert to that as well."

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