In short:

The procedures to deal with racism complaints against First Nations athletes are failing at both the elite and community level, the federal racism inquiry has heard.

Former Olympic boxer Marissa Williamson Pohlmann said Boxing Australia threatened her with "repercussions" if she carried the Aboriginal flag at an Olympic qualifier.

What's next?

Executives from ABC and SBS/NITV will appear this afternoon as the hearing turns its focus to racism in media.

Elite sporting organisations are not culturally safe for First Nations athletes and their complaint procedures not fit for purpose, a former Olympic boxer has told a federal racism inquiry.

The final hearings of the parliamentary inquiry into racism, hate and violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, held in Naarm/Melbourne, has focused on racism in sport and media.

Former Olympic boxer Marissa Williamson Pohlman told the inquiry Indigenous athletes carried the load of racism both on and off the sporting field.

"I'm not only dealing with the racism I experience whilst I'm trying to be an athlete in the arena, but also the systemic failures that are going on for me and my family outside of sport," she said.

"I don't think that I'll ever actually get to witness myself what I could have become as an athlete because all my energy has been wasted on fighting just for a fair go."

Ms Williamson Pohlman, the first Aboriginal woman to represent Australia in Olympic boxing, said she had frequently been on the receiving end of racist slurs during her sporting career.

She also said a Boxing Australia official had called her home coach and threatened "repercussions" if she carried the Aboriginal flag at an Olympic Games qualifier in Solomon Islands.

"Institutions celebrate Blak excellence when it is convenient, but abandon us when it matters most," she said.

"So it's all good when I put some deadly artwork on the uniform, but cultural safety and practice is another thing."

Ms Williamson Pohlmann said she had faced many roadblocks trying to pursue complaints against former national head coach Jamie Pittman.

Mr Pittman is currently employed as Boxing Australia's acting high-performance manager, despite having withdrawn from the Paris Olympics after admitting to sexual misconduct.

Ms Williamson Pohlmann wants an independent investigation into the organisation.

"Through my trials and tribulations I've come to understand that sporting federations investigate themselves," Ms Williamson Pohlmann said.

"Sport Integrity Australia, despite their name, they can only investigate individuals, not the actual organisation.

"The National Sports Tribunal can only take complaints if the federation agrees to it. So they're all just looking out for each other."

The ABC has contacted Boxing Australia for comment.

'You're not in our shoes'

Representatives of Melbourne football and netball club the Fitzroy Stars told the hearing they had experienced racism at the hands of competitors, coaches and umpires, with little recourse.

Club president Aunty Esme Bamblett said racism complaints should not be adjudicated by all-white sporting tribunals and must include people with lived experience.

"You can't be impartial [if] you don't know what it feels like to be an Aboriginal person," she said.

"You don't know what it feels like in this country to be an Aboriginal person who has racism directed at them. You don't know because you're not in our shoes."

Torres Strait Islander and former AFL executive Tanya Hosch told the inquiry the responsibility of dealing with racism should not be placed on those who experience it.

"I can't think of a single workplace that I have worked in where I haven't experienced racism and depending on your circumstances in that workplace, [it] drastically impacts your ability to stand up to it," she said.

Ms Hosch said it was "beyond disappointing" that few state and territory government departments across the country had accepted the committee's requests to appear in person.

"It would seem to me that governments of all persuasions are seeking to avoid fronting up to this conversation for fear that they may be politically wedged."

She said the federal inquiry was "one of the few glimmers of hope" among the "ongoing assaults of racism".

Independent senator and committee member Lidia Thorpe said the AFL and NRL had both declined the committee's requests to appear.

The inquiry was announced in the wake of the alleged terror attack on an Invasion Day rally in Perth in January and a violent neo-Nazi attack on Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne last August.

The final report is due to be tabled in parliament by the end of the year.