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Personal freedoms may be "redrawn" in the wake of the Martin Place siege, Prime Minister Tony Abbott says, despite an initial report finding there were no signs gunman Man Haron Monis was intent on carrying out a terrorist act.
And despite being on the radar of the authorities for years the review says that even under recently passed tougher counter-terror laws, "at no point did [Monis] do or say anything which would have enabled him to be successfully charged with a terrorism offence" or qualify for a control order.
Mr Abbott said that while the report found the authorities' verdicts on Monis over time were "justifiable", the "monster" should never have been in the community or allowed into the country and showed the "benefit of the doubt" is no longer fit for some.
"Plainly, in their totality, the system has let us down," the Prime Minister said.
"So, plainly, we need to re-examine the system and ask ourselves at what stage do we need to change the tipping point from protection of the individual to the safety of the community and that's exactly what we're doing."
Mr Abbott flagged tougher scrutiny of citizenship and visa applications, heftier sanctions for people found to have gamed the system as well as new measures aimed at countering violent extremism in his speech on National Security on Monday. Labor leader Bill Shorten promised the Parliament will "work together" on combating terrorist threats.
The report revealed 18 calls and emails were made to the national security hotline over a three-day period about Monis' Facebook posts just three days before he walked into the Lindt café and held 18 people hostage. But authorities found the posts "whilst controversial and potentially offensive", did not indicate any intent to carry out the siege in which café manager Tori Johnson and Sydney barrister Katrina Dawson were killed.
The report shows Monis was well known to authorities dating back to his arrival in Australia on a short-term business visa from Iran in 1996. While his behaviour ranged from bizarre to criminal over his 18 years in Australia, the review found that "right up until that fateful day in December 2014 … agencies never found any information to indicate Monis had the intent or desire to commit a terrorist act".
Monis had a "long history of provocative, attention-seeking behaviour" and making "unreliable or false claims". He "regularly and persistently" contacted ASIO and the National Security hotline offering to be an intelligence source claiming to have inside knowledge of al-Qaeda, the September 11 attacks and the 2005 London tube bombings, often seeking financial reward. He was dismissed all occasions as not credible.
Monis suffered bouts of mental illness and while he was the subject of "many law enforcement and security investigations" none provided any pointers to the Martin place siege, says the review. His bizarre behaviour turned sinister when he began writing letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. He wrote to the Pope, the Queen, high profile politicians and even came to the attention of the United States Secret Service when he sent a DVD issuing a fatwa against President Barack Obama to broadcaster NBC.
Australian authorities told the Secret Service that Monis was not perceived as a terrorism threat but may be causing offence to numerous people. At the time of the siege, he was on conditional bail despite being charged with being accessory to the murder of his former partner and with 40 alleged historical sex offences.
