The Prime Minister raised the issue again in light of the Orlando mass shooting, but experts accuse the government of using fear to win votes.
Criminal defence lawyer Rob Stary has criticised the idea as draconian.
"We don't jail people - in a sense, pre-emptively - for what we think they may do. This isn't George Orwell's 1984 I'm afraid."
First raised by federal, state and territory leaders several months ago, the idea is to bring in a preventative detention scheme for those convicted of terror-related offences who are facing release.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he intends to push it through should a coalition government be re-elected.
"People who have been convicted of serious terrorist offences and imprisoned, being kept in detention - in preventative detention - after the end of their sentence."
Those convicted of terror offences would remain locked up if it's shown they are still a threat to society.
A move Labor could also support, a spokesman saying the party has consistently sought to provide bipartisanship on national security.
It's a situation some high-profile criminals in Australia may soon be facing.
Abdul Nacer Benbrika, charged in 2005 over a plot to bomb the MCG, is up for parole next year.
Others arrested in the 2005 operation that uncovered terror networks in Melbourne and Sydney - remain in jail but will become eligible for parole.
Terrorism expert Greg Barton says there's need for a change to deal with convicted terrorism plotters who remain an ongoing threat.
"The basic idea that there are some individuals who have ongoing influence that's malign - to themselves but also to younger people who fall under their influence - that there be some limitations on their freedom to balance up the common good makes sense."
How the government intends for the law to be applied remains a mystery.
Although those incarcerated may still hold radicalised beliefs, defence lawyer Rob Stary says the law could only be constitutionally sound if it's proven the suspect intends to act.
"Let's see any demonstrated need before we invest further powers and incarcerate people at an enormous cost to the community for what they're thinking, rather than what they're doing."
He says those released already face heavy surveillance and anything further would be an erosion of human rights.
"We have a notion in our common-law justice system, evolved over hundreds of years, that says when a person pays their debt to society and they are punished appropriately then they should be released into the community. We don't jail people because of what they think."
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