How different it would have been if Phillip Galea had been called Mohammed.

You might remember that in September 2014, hundreds of federal and state police raided Muslim family homes in Sydney and Brisbane. Media crews were massed, ready to film every detail. Intelligence officers had picked up “chatter” about a planned violent act. One – yes, one man – was charged with minor offences.

But boy, we knew what was at stake: terror and mayhem. You had to be asleep to miss the lurid, wall to wall coverage in print and online media. Screaming headlines such as “EVIL WITHIN” and “TERROR AUSTRALIS” reminded us hour after hour.

Contrast this with Phillip Galea, Islamophobe and fascist, who was arrested recently. He had in his house sufficient materials to make bombs: 3,000 times the legally allowed amount of mercury and a stash of electronic equipment. Plus he had five tasers he was threatening to take to a fascist rally to use against anti-racists – credible given that he took a knife to two previous rallies.

You may not have noticed the media reports because they were so inconspicuous. If you did, you could be forgiven for thinking he’s just an ordinary racist like plenty of politicians. “Anti-immigration campaigner”, journalists called him. He is a fascist, not just one of those “ordinary mums and dads” portrayed as innocents defending the fabulous “Australian Way of Life”.

The arrest was a low-key affair. A couple of camera crews filmed this Nazi spewing his vile anti-Muslim racism, even advertising the upcoming mobilisation against a planned mosque in Melton.

Hidden away on page eight the next day, the Age had a minor article headed, “Weapons fear at anti-Islam rally”. The Herald Sun refrained from any comment except a minor piece online.

This didn’t capture the gravity of the facts. Magistrate Jonathan Klestadt found that Galea held extreme views, intent on “the subjugation of other political, religious or ethnic groups” to his way of life. Klestadt accused him of plotting violence against those he disagrees with, the evidence of bomb making and threats was not disputed, and then he sentenced him to one month to consider his sins.

Compare that to the 15 years meted out to Abdul Nacer Benbrika in 2008 for thought crimes. Not for actually trying to make bombs or doing anything other than talk – philosophical discussions about what revenge is permissible for the destruction of Iraq by the West – and entrapped by a police provocateur into watching the detonation of an explosive device.

Or remember the treatment of the 17-year-old in October. He put his anger out there on social media when the cops shot his friend, who had killed Curtis Cheng, a police employee. Under suspicion for posting on Facebook that the cops should “burn in hell” and “no justice, no peace, fuck the police”, he was rounded on by cops wearing batons, guns and stun guns on their hips. Laughably, he allegedly “intimidated police”. Actually, all he did was film them arriving at his school.

His belongings were emptied onto the footpath, where he was kept sitting in manacles, humiliated before his school friends and on TV. He was charged with assaulting and intimidating police, two counts of resisting arrest and using a carriage service to menace/harass/offend after more than nine hours in police custody.

The mosque in which the shooter prayed was raided by cops with no evidence that there was a connection.

Galea declares himself a devout Christian. There have been no demands that the preachers in his church denounce him – certainly not that they must do so repeatedly and convincingly. No police raids. No enquiries into what is preached in that church. No demands for hunting down anyone in that church or schools associated with it who might be following in his radical steps.

And to top it off, the jailing of this fascist produced an anti-Muslim headline! Both the Age and Herald Sun ran “updates” with headlines warning that Galea “feared attacks from Muslims in jail”.