By popular request, the summer holidays of Australia's federal parliamentarians have been cut short, but many of His Majesty's (Rupert's) Loyal Opposition are already regretting what they wished for.

Since last weekend's terror attack at Bondi Beach, gun law reform has returned to centre stage in state and federal politics, with changes likely to include limiting the number and type of weapons individuals can own, reviewing licensing rules, sharing criminal intelligence before approvals, and restricting firearm licences to Australian citizens.

The man booted off a Tigerair flight from Melbourne to the Gold Coast last Saturday for doodling the word ‘Terrorismadeup’ on his notepad has told The Echo of his experiences.

How serious a threat is terrorism to Australians? We devote billions of taxpayer dollars to it, impose economic costs on ourselves and our industries and sacrifice some of our most basic freedoms for it. So it must be a huge threat to Australia, correct?

Canberra's response to revelations that Australian citizens have gone to fight for the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq follows the same pattern of state fear-mongering used after 9/11 by Western governments in order to boost military spending and introduce draconian surveillance powers.