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Howard plans terror summit with states

State and territory leaders have been called to Canberra next month for a special summit to deal with counter-terrorism issues.

Prime Minister John Howard wrote to premiers and chief ministers proposing a special meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in the wake of the London bombings.

National identification cards, legal changes including British proposals to hold terror suspects for up to three months without charge, and transport security will all be on the agenda at the meeting, which will be held in late September.

Mr. Howard said while there were concerns about the impact of tighter terrorism laws on civil liberties, protecting Australian lives was his top priority.

"The most important civil liberty I have is, and you have, is to stay alive and to be free from violence and death, I think when people talk about civil liberties they sometimes forget that action taken to protect the citizen against physical violence and physical attack is a blow in favour and not a blow against civil liberties."

Premiers called for a special COAG summit in the days after the London bombings and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said the delay in calling the meeting reeked of mismanagement.

"All we have from John Howard four weeks after the London bombings are thought bubbles and the promise of a meeting," Mr. Beazley said in a statement.

Mr. Howard said he was assessing whether Australia needed tougher laws for those who incited terrorism. He confirmed the government was looking at legal changes relating to detaining terror suspects, but played down suggestions Australia might follow Britain's lead of allowing people to be detained for up to three months.

Members of the Australian Federal Police team that went to London following the July 7 bombings would attend the summit, along with experts from Britain.

"We do need, in the wake of what has occurred in London, to assess whether there are some messages from that that can be incorporated into Australia's arrangements, however, every country needs its home grown responses because every country has a particular home grown challenge."

A day after Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said Australians should be nervous about the prospect of a terrorist attack on home soil, Mr. Howard warned against complacency.

"I don't want to overestimate or overstate the challenge we face but equally those who imagine that it can't happen here are misplaced, it can happen here and we would be very complacent if we imagine it will not, although the challenges in this country are not as great as I believe in many other societies."

Mr. Howard said terrorism would only be beaten if the community worked together with determination, deliberation, balance and commonsense over a long period of time.

"It requires an understanding of all Australians that they all have a role to play - we need each other and we need to work with each other in order to solve a problem, and it needs all of us - particularly people of influence in the community - to reassert the fundamental values of Australia."

The PM is helping terrorists achieve their aims by reducing individual freedoms as part of stricter counter-terrorism laws, a prominent civil libertarian has said. NSW Council of Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy said government plans to strengthen anti-terror legislation could leave Australia looking like "Stalinist Russia".