It could be motivated by hate, but it’s certainly not a hate crime in itself. I would call this a bias incident.

If we assume the act was hateful, it still does not harm nor threaten any one person. It’s hard to claim any particular LGBTQ person was victimized by this, at least without further context.

And in New Zealand, you are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Painting over a sidewalk is just defamation of public property, that’s all police should focus on.

(Voted ‘unsure’)

I know very little about law - and even less about New Zealand law - but as far as I’m aware, a hate crime is generally defined as a crime motivated by prejudice towards a protected group, e.g. LGBTQ people.

So if this crime (vandalism) was motivated by prejudice towards LGBTQ people then I suppose that makes it a hate crime - but a rather minor one.