A decade after Australia introduced its first anti-terrorism legislation, leading constitutional lawyers say the laws have been in place too long and are eroding democratic freedoms.

There were no national anti-terrorist laws in Australia before the September 11 attacks. About 54 laws dealing with terrorism have been passed at a federal level since then.

There are many more similar laws at a state and territory level.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland says four major terrorism plots have been thwarted in Australia due to the laws.

"If you're looking at the history, the major threat has been from the so-called home-grown potential terrorists," he said.

"A terrorist attack is feasible in Australia but there's no specific evidence of an intended one at the current time."

Professor Peter Bailey from Australian National University's College of Law says the laws have been in place too long and are threatening human rights.

"In terms of human rights, too many protections have been removed [because of the laws]," he told ABC News Online.

"The original promises were that they would all be out of the way within the decade and that hasn't happened. That is regrettable.

"I'm not saying we shouldn't have some counter-terrorism laws, but I think the ones we have are too many. People's human rights and ordinary common law civil liberties have been heavily reduced and threatened."

Professor Bailey says there needs to be a government inquiry into the laws.

"I would like to see a parliamentary committee have a thorough review on the basis that there should be consideration of which provisions are still necessary," he said.

"And if they are necessary, whether they should be put into the criminal code as such and then aligned with common law rights and freedoms and human rights."

Professor George Williams, from the University of New South Wales law faculty, agrees the laws are in bad shape.

"It's appropriate we have laws on the books that criminalise terrorism and prevent acts of terrorism, but we've got too many laws which are disproportionate, which I think, in, for example, criminalising speech or providing for the detention of non-suspects, go too far and are unjustified in terms of the threat that Australia is facing," he told Radio National.

"I think it's really significant that we copied a lot of these laws from the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom is now in the middle of winding them back.

"They've got a protection of liberties bill in their parliament, put there by the Cameron government, that abolishes their control order regime, replaces it with something far more respectful of human rights, and in other respects as well, they're, for example, halving the detention period of suspects.

"We've copied those laws yet there's no hunger here to actually take the message that we should recalibrate them to the new environment and actually put them in a form that I think is more appropriate, given the threat and also given the need to protect individual liberties."

Professor Williams also believes the laws have been in place too long.

"If you read the Hansard debates they're talked about as being exceptional laws, laws passed in reaction to attacks overseas, laws passed because of fear that we may well see attacks in Australia," he said.

"And what we got were laws which were very much proportionate to the fear we felt rather than I think the threat we faced at the time, but it was felt that those laws would be on the books as long as needed.

"But, of course, what we've got with something in the so-called war on terror is a set of laws and a tactic that will continue to be used, that it's not clear there will be any foreseeable end.

"Indeed, the laws have been on the books now longer than World War I and World War II where we've had other wartime powers.

"I think it means we now need to come to the practical realisation that these laws are here to stay, and, as such, we need to look at some hard questions about if they are to stay, are they in a good form for a democracy or will they actually erode and corrode some of the sort of freedoms we're meant to be protecting from terrorism."

Professor Williams says the laws contain extraordinary powers and sanctions that were "unthinkable prior to the September 11 attacks".

"We wouldn't have thought, prior to them, we'd have to control order regime, whereby someone without charge can be detained, perhaps through house arrest, and have other parts of their liberty restricted, preventative detention orders, sedition laws - which now have fortunately have been fixed - but nonetheless dealt with people being jailed for seven years for their speech, not their actions," he said.

"Or the ASIO laws, whereby people who are non-suspects can be questioned and detained for up to a week.

"And that's really just the tip of the iceberg."

A safer place?

Professor Williams also fears the laws promote radicalisation in Australia.

"One of my concerns, though, is that I think the stringent nature of some of these laws can actually promote some of the radicalisation that leads to a terrorist attack, and, indeed, the laws can sometimes not be a solution to a problem," he said.

"That's because when you see very lengthy sentences handed down, members of the community can form a sense of grievance, of ostracisation, and that can actually fuel the possibilities of extremism and recruitment by terrorists.

"And that's why the laws need to be balanced out with other programs which enhance social cohesion, and are really clear and demonstrate a desire to apply the laws fairly and to make sure the laws are limited to the minimum that is required, to actually deal with the terrorist threat, rather than often being what can amount to an overreaction."

Professor Bailey believes the laws have made Australians feel safer in some ways and not others.

"I think people are happy there are laws there that will deal effectively with terrorists, and to an extent internally - we had an awful time in Bali - but internally we have not had major attacks, so we ought to feel safer," Professor Bailey said.

"But at the same time, as the immediate threats seem to reduce a bit, there are some pretty awful consequences of the existing laws. That's illustrated in the case of [Mohamed] Haneef and Jack Thomas and others taken by immigration."

Haneef case

Dr Mohamed Haneef, (right) with his wife Firdous Arshiya and daughter Haniya Kulthum. ( Patrick Hamilton: AAP )

One of the most contentious uses of Australia's anti-terror laws by authorities involved the case of Dr Mohamed Haneef.

The doctor, who had been working as a hospital registrar on Queensland's Gold Coast, was wrongly accused of being involved in the botched 2007 terrorist attack in Glasgow in Scotland.

He was detained for more than three weeks and then had his working visa cancelled, however an independent inquiry later cleared him of any wrongdoing and he received substantial compensation from the Commonwealth.

Professor Williams says his case highlights the issues with the laws.

"It shows just how there are problems lurking within these laws, that can lead them to be used in ways that transgress our assumptions about what are the proper limits of the law in Australia," he said.

"He was picked up under a provision, which enabled the police to hold someone for a long period of time before charging them.

"Normally a person can be held for 12 hours, for murder or whatever it may be, but that was increased to 24 hours for terrorist suspects, but a provision also said that that 24 hours the clock could be stopped running, so you have 24 hours of questioning time, but in fact that might be spread over many days and, in his case, 12 days.

"And, over that period of time people became increasingly concerned about the holding of this person in circumstances where he was being treated so differently to other normal suspects, and ultimately the case against him collapsed.

"So he was the subject through immigration and anti-terror laws of all sorts of coercive restrictions, and ultimately they were found to be groundless, and actually he's been compensated by the Australian government for his mistreatment under those laws."

Raft of changes

An inquiry by John Clarke QC into the Haneef affair recommended a raft of changes to the laws, which the Federal Government enacted last year.

"One of the main changes he recommended was that this old provision that you could hold someone, potentially indefinitely, when your 24-hour questioning would proceed, had to go, and he suggested a time limit be imposed, and that was done, in 2010, and a seven-day time limit is now imposed, so that terror suspects can be held for that maximum period before being released," Professor Williams said.

"But even that's dramatically longer than the 12-hour period for other types of suspects."

Professor Williams says there have been numerous inquiries that have found issues with the laws.

"There's been a number of these types of inquiries which have shown really significant problems with the laws, often because of how quickly they were passed," he said.

"But what's troubling is that, even though these laws were quickly passed, it's been rare to see them fixed, and it was only in 2010 that we saw a raft of changes bringing about some much needed repairs."

Mr McClelland says following September 11 there was a need for strong laws.

"Many of these powers were designed as measures of absolute last resort and have been treated as such," he said.

"While some may see this as indicating that these powers are unnecessary, it actually indicates the laws are working as intended, with agencies using their powers with appropriate restraint."