In opposition, Labor endorsed the many impositions on civil liberties imposed by the Howard government's much-amended legislation in the "war on terror".

However, three elections on from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, and with a raft of new MPs and senators in the caucus, a mood is building for a review of the legislation.

Particularly in the sights of a number of MPs and senators is the need to soften provisions about the ability of authorities to detain terrorism suspects without charge and without the ability to even notify family members.

The office of Attorney-General Robert McClelland will say only that the first law officer continues to assess the recommendations of the reports of former NSW Supreme Court judge Simon Sheller and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security regarding amendment of the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2002. In its September 2007 report, the committee "reiterates that an Independent Reviewer be established to monitor the application of terrorism laws, including the use of special police and intelligence powers, on an ongoing basis".

The Government may receive a trigger for action from a number of current terrorism court cases, via potentially strongly worded judgments criticising arrest and detention powers. (Already, Justice Bernard Bongiorno, in the Victorian Supreme Court, has warned that harsh prison conditions imposed on those facing terrorism offences are enough to constitute an unfair trial. He has flagged that he will stay the trial of 12 defendants unless their conditions improve by next Monday.)

Some caucus members, noting that they had voted for most of the anti-terrorism legislation throughout the Howard years, have suggested that, while a growing number of MPs were "not unsympathetic" to change, the issue might have to wait until later in the life of the new Government.

They noted also that McClelland, and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, had far more conservative attitudes on security issues than many of their colleagues. Indeed, the pair was involved in a pre-election display of just how sensitive the top ranks of the Labor Party is when it comes to terrorism.

Rudd repudiated McClelland when the then shadow foreign minister, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Bali bombings, restated Labor policy of consistent opposition to the death penalty. The timing regarding Bali was the main problem, but the fact the speech came only a fortnight before the election was called did not help.

Labor was determined to show no difference between it and the Howard government on national security in the shadows of the election.

The parts of the legislation that are causing MPs to bridle now were accepted almost without question under the leadership of Kim Beazley in 2005-2006. That raft of changes overturned some basic concepts of justice. A lawyer defending a person who was subject to a control or detention order could not see the affidavit material put forward by a police officer to the "issuing authority" of the order.

The president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O'Gorman, said at the time, "I can't even ask for it," making promises of judicial oversight "very hollow indeed". O'Gorman said the proposed "issuing authorities" included judges who had been retired for five years and deputy presidents of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This "special class" of retiree included people with the standing of "unregistered dogs", people who could be too susceptible to prosecutors' claims for national-security privilege.

When they decided final orders, they would not have the benefit of a transcript of the interim-order hearing, which could be held, without the accused attending, in an "issuing authority's" office. "That's not judging," he said. "That really is police-state stuff."

O'Gorman said the prohibited contact orders, under which detained people cannot contact their spouses, children or bosses, were OK, in certain, defined circumstances.

"In an imminent terrorist-bombing scenario where there's evidence put before a senior judicial officer not a magistrate, not an AAT person that's probably justified in order to prevent the person who's been detained from tipping off his co-perpetrators, thereby allowing them to escape or let their bomb off earlier than planned," he said. "In a tightly drawn scheme, that would be acceptable, but this scheme's too widely drawn."

Beazley and Labor did not have any such qualms, at least not publicly, backing the substance of the Howard changes.

At its outset, the new Labor Government is singing from the same hymn sheet more than two years later. Last week it blocked a move by Liberal moderate Petro Georgiou for a private member's Bill to appoint an independent assessor to look at the nation's anti-terrorism regime, giving further credence to the cautious approach of Rudd and McClelland.

Despite increasing back-bench eagerness for review, it is understood that neither the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence nor either of the House or Senate committees on legal and constitutional affairs have any proposals for change before them.

One new Labor MP, Melissa Parke, a former United Nations lawyer in Kosovo, Gaza and Lebanon, is a strong and public supporter of change.

"Some of the measures went too far," she said. "Someone who is not even suspected of an offence but is thought to possibly have information that could be relevant to an offence can be detained for a certain period [up to a week] and does not have the right to tell anyone where they are; does not have the right to tell even their family; does not have the right to be told why they've been detained; they don't have the right to go to a court and seek a review. And then they can't tell anyone where they were when they come out.

"I just think that's pretty bad. It's outrageous in fact. What we ought to be doing is making sure that our laws fit within a human-rights framework which includes ensuring that there is always access to judicial review, and not admitting evidence obtained by torture."

Parke said she believed the Government's move against Georgiou's Bill had been more on procedural grounds (that he had sought a debate on it at an inappropriate time for the Government) rather than against its substance. "The part of it I heard, I would certainly agree with," she said.

While direct on the need for change, Parke acknowledges the crucial importance of national security, and has been closer to the need for it than most. She worked for the UN investigating the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri.

It's that sort of balance of perspective and persuasion, combined with the further effluxion of time, that is set to lead to the unpicking of the worst aspects of Australia's anti-terrorism deal some time during the current parliamentary cycle.

Andrew Fraser is political correspondent.