For 15 years since the September 2001 attacks in the US we have been warned of the terrorist threat to our country. We have accepted the erosion of civil liberties as a trade-off for tough anti-terrorism laws which are meant to protect us. We have been assured that our governments approach the threat with utmost seriousness and diligence.

Yet in NSW in December 2014, the only specialist police resources on hand in our state to negotiate a terrorism-inspired hostage situation were two men and a broken-down truck. A point of contention at the inquest is whether the NSW police should have called on the counter-terrorism resources of the Australian Defence Force.

A profusion of troubling evidence about the adequacy of the police response to the 17-hour siege is emerging at the inquest. It can be presumed that those most affected by the tragedy hear some of it with utmost dismay. That includes the families of cafe manager Tori Johnson, executed by the lone gunman at 2.13am, and barrister Katrina Dawson, killed by ricochet from police bullet fragments when police stormed the cafe immediately afterwards.

The hearings which run until at least the end of July raise very serious questions about whether the three deaths - including that of the gunman Man Haron Monis, shot 13 times by police - could have been avoided. The families have had to fight against objections from the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions to get much of the evidence into the public domain.

The inquest has been told the negotiators were ill-equipped partly because a purpose-built negotiating truck was damaged by weather in 2011 and had not been repaired. It's heard the negotiation team of up to five people was crammed into a manager's office at the NSW Leagues' Club with one landline and one mobile phone. The office number was provided to hostages but diverted to somewhere else in the club if a negotiator was on the phone.