Australia should beef up counter-terrorism measures: expert  

The architect of one of Australia's most controversial counter-terrorism measures said it needs to be further strengthened, and Australians may have to give up some civil liberties in order to feel safe.

Roger Wilkins, the former secretary to the Attorney-General who helped mastermind Australia's Preventative Detention Orders (PDO), said the recent terror attacks in France, which has claimed the lives of 132 people, would force authorities to further expand his own policy.

PDOs, also known as "control orders", give police the power to detain would-be terrorists without charge for up to 14 days if they believe the suspect is plotting an "imminent terror attack".

Wilkins said Australians returning from combat in Syria and Iraq should face greater scrutiny, with several of the eight Islamic State (IS)-backed Paris bombers believed to have fought with the jihadist group abroad before carrying out the coordinated killings. Around 30 Australians have reportedly returned from these conflict zones.

"When we started that process of control orders we asked the question: so what do we do with this university of terrorism, which is what Syria and Iraq is?" Wilkins said in comments published by Fairfax Media on Wednesday.

"We've got people going there and coming back. We know who they are and they do in Europe too. So ... you actually need to make some compromise in terms of usual civil liberties."

"You need to be able to say, 'Well, I'm sorry, you can freely go around Belgium or France or Australia but we're going to need to monitor your telephone, your computer, your finances and your movements until further notice'."

"The take-out message (from Paris) for me is that the response, the use of control orders, needs to be much stronger. In a modern, liberal democracy that's about the only thing you can do."

Before the attacks, the Australian government had already introduced new legislative changes to PDOs reducing the minimum age from 16 to 14 -- a move prompted by the shooting of a NSW police employee last month at the hands of 15-year-old terrorist in Sydney.

Wilkins made the comments at a major anti-terrorism summit in Sydney on Tuesday. He will speak at the conference on Wednesday about the benefits of proactive, preventative terrorism police work, something he said was preferable to "trying to pick up the pieces after".

"Intelligence is what modern law enforcement is going to be all about," Wilkins said. Endit