Calling a stabbing of two police officers a terrorist act could make it more appealing to wannabe warriors, an expert warns.
Known terror suspect Numan Haider, 18, stabbed two police officers outside a Melbourne police station before being shot dead on Tuesday night.
Dr Shakira Hussein, a lecturer on Islam and gender at Melbourne University, said governments and police should be careful not to label the attack until all the facts were clear.
"Labelling something a terrorist attack might make it seem more sinister in the eyes of many, but it also inflates it," Dr Hussein told AAP on Thursday.
"For people who are looking to be important, and are looking to be part of something big, that makes it more appealing rather than less."
Mr Haider had his passport cancelled a week before the attack, and he had been seen with an ISIS flag at a Melbourne shopping centre.
Dr Hussein said after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, mental health experts said focusing on shooter Martin Bryant rather than the victims was counter-productive.
"I think that might be even more the case for these kinds of acts. People want to see themselves as a warrior," Dr Hussein said.
Professor Greg Barton, director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University, said the Tuesday night attack was a level above what Australia had seen before.
"We certainly face the unwelcome reality that we've moved into a different kind of threat environment," he told AAP.
"It's an evolution of a threat environment we've been familiar with for some time, but it's energised and accelerated by what's happening in Iraq, Syria."
Victoria Police chief commissioner Ken Lay said the attack showed the changing nature of threats to police, with social media providing a new avenue of danger.
"People from other parts of the world can reach into our community, often young men in our community, and preach hate, preach violence," Mr Lay told ABC radio on Thursday.
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