Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police's Special Operations Group raided three homes in Melbourne's north just before 5 o'clock this morning.
They targeted properties in Ascot Vale, Glenroy and Gladstone Park.
Outside one of the homes, neighbour Thomas MacNair says the commotion woke him up.
"I heard a bit of crashing by the police this morning, woke me up, yeah. They said oh 'it's the police open up, let us in' and all of this. I'm thinking, what's going on?"
Police arrested a 32 year-old Glenroy man while two others, aged 31 and 51, were interviewed.
They also seized an imitation shotgun.
Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Patton stressed the people involved are known to the police but are not suspected of posing a threat to national security.
"The persons who we have spoken to, and who are of interest to us, I stress at this stage, are not persons who have any national security interest. We do not, at this time, have any links between them and terrorism. So I wish to stress that, they are not persons of national security interest. They are however, persons who are known to us, through their criminal history."
The raids were focused on firearms, and who might have supplied weapons to Yacqub Kayre [yah-KOOB KY-ree], who killed a man and took a woman hostage in Monday night's siege before being shot dead by police.
Police say they found two shotguns belonging to Khayre after the siege.
Boosting counter-terrorism prevention efforts was top of the agenda at today's Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Hobart.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says protecting the public now ranks as the most important duty for governments and their law enforcement agencies.
"Keeping Australians safe, our most important duty. Ensuring the security of Australian families in the face of a rising threat of Islamist terrorism."
Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews wants 24-hour armed patrols at all airports, and changes to bail procedures, including direct AFP and intelligence agencies' involvement in bail applications where there are terror links.
His other suggestion is a specialist maximum security federal prison reserved for people charged or convicted of terror offences.
"Perhaps a fit-for-purpose, centralised prison where all of these offenders cab be properly jailed and where we can have one policy, one focus on what is a very big threat to every single one of us."
Federal Opposition leader Bill Shorten says the suggestion is at least worth considering.
"I think one of the concerns that people see with some of our jails is that you get young people going in for some crimes and they're getting radicalised in jail so I think that we need to make sure that we're quarantining the really bad terrorists and the people who've got evil intent towards this country and they're not automatically wandering around with every other prisoner. So, let's just have a look at the proposal, not ruling it in, not ruling it out."
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