Grand Mufti has 'condemned terrorism all his life'
Authorities will need wider powers to monitor and restrict the movement of extremists if Australia is to avoid a Paris-style terrorist attack, according to the former top bureaucrat who oversaw the introduction of the controversial terrorism control orders.
The suggestion that police use control orders to monitor private communications and movements much more widely is likely to reignite a national security debate as France grapples with the intelligence failures that led to the most co-ordinated and deadly terror attack in the country's history. 
Roger Wilkins, who left his post as secretary of the federal Attorney-General's department last year, said the key to preventing a similar disaster in Australia was to increase the use and scope of control orders, particularly for returned fighters.
Several of the eight jihadists who killed 129 people in Paris on Friday are believed to have fought in Syria and Iraq and returned to Europe. About 30 Australians are believed to have returned home after fighting in the region.
"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?" Mr Wilkins told Fairfax Media at a high-level counter-terrorism financing summit in Sydney on Tuesday.
"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."
Control orders have been used a handful of times in Australia on people who the AFP believe may commit a terror attack. They heavily restrict the movement, communications and associations of suspects without the need for a criminal prosecution.
The federal government introduced a fifth tranche of national security legislation last week to widen the scope and secrecy of control orders, including lowering the age at which a person can be subject to a control order from 16 to 14.
The control orders have the support of both sides of Parliament, with shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus saying on Tuesday they had "clearly emerged as a useful tool in dealing with the present terror threat" and the opposition would "carefully consider" the further changes being proposed.
Federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan also reaffirmed the government's support for control orders in the wake of the Paris attacks, saying the orders were a form of "enhanced surveillance" that have proved effective.
Mr Wilkins, who recently served as president of the Financial Action Task Force, supported calls to lower the age limit to 12, saying control orders were "the best and most sensible way of dealing with this problem".
"Preventative mechanisms are difficult for the traditional areas of criminal law to digest ... because it's normally ex post facto and here we need to act before to prevent or shut down what might be a terrible tragedy," he said.
Control orders have been heavily criticised in legal circles, with former independent national security monitor Bret Walker, SC, recently saying the orders require tremendous amounts of surveillance without any evidence of making the country safer. He recommended abolishing the system in 2012.
International counter-terrorism law expert Ben Saul said Australia has introduced so many new powers since   September 11, 2001, that it "kind of undermines the rationale" for control orders. He said the bar for the orders was too low and the safeguards too few.
"Every time there is a terrorist act, governments immediately reach for more legislation and more powers for intelligence agency," said Professor Saul, from the University of Sydney.
"Australia has more counter-terrorism laws than pretty much any democracy on the planet... [and] all of that without the human rights safeguards that every other democracy has."
Muslim community advocate Keysar Trad, who has had contact with some young men named in control orders, said the approach alienated and divided young Muslim Australians with few safety gains.
"We need to reassure Muslim youths that they are valued Australian citizens and that we need them in our struggle to keep our country safe and harmonious," he said.
An AFP spokesman said control order legislation was "constantly kept under review".
National counter-terrorism manager Neil Gaughan previously told Fairfax Media that, while police would always prefer to lay charges, they anticipated an expanded use of control orders as plots became more spontaneous, making it harder to gather evidence ahead of an arrest.
Mr Wilkins will address the joint Australian-Indonesian counter-terrorism financing summit on Wednesday on the need for law enforcement to move into crime prevention based on intelligence, "rather than trying to pick up the pieces after".
"Intelligence is what modern law enforcement is going to be all about," he said.