Prime Minister Tony Abbott has put the spotlight on NSW bail laws after extremist gunman Man Haron Monis was allowed to walk the streets despite facing more than 40 serious offences.
Monis was on bail for a raft of violent charges, including being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife, when he took 17 people hostage inside a popular CBD cafe on Monday morning.
The siege ended 16-and-a-half hours later with the death of barrister Katrina Dawson, shop manager Tori Johnson and Monis.
"How can someone who has had such a long and chequered history, not be on the appropriate watch lists, and how can someone like that be entirely at large in the community?" Mr Abbott asked.
NSW Premier Mike Baird felt outraged that Monis was on bail and acknowledged the community had the right to feel upset.
"We also need to understand why he wasn't picked up," he said.
NSW Attorney-General Brad Hazzard said Monis had slipped through the cracks of security and policing agencies.
However, he did not believe Monis would have been out on bail had the revamped bail act, due to start next month, been in place.
Under the new legislation, a person charged with being an accessory to murder would be required to show cause as to why he or she should be granted bail.
Mr Hazzard insisted it wouldn't be possible for the new bail regime to be implemented before January 28 as officers needed to be fully trained.
There are also questions over how Monis was able to source a shotgun and carry it so freely into the heart of the CBD.
Court documents from 2011, when he was charged with stalking and intimidating his ex-wife Noleen Hayson Pal, reveal he had a firearm licence while working as a security officer, but it had expired.
The documents also show he allegedly threatened to shoot his former partner if his demands were not met.
Monis, 50, first gained notoriety when he wrote a series of offensive letters to families of several Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
He was placed on a two-year good behaviour bond for this in 2013.
But within a year he had been charged with being an accessory to his ex-wife's murder and more than 40 sex offences against several women.
Ms Pal, 30, was stabbed to death and set alight in April 2013 in a Werrington unit block in western Sydney.
Monis's then partner, Amirah Droudis, 34, has been charged with her murder.
Ms Pal's godfather Ayyut Khalik was disappointed Monis was released despite being implicated in the murder.
"When we found out he was arrested we were very, very happy that justice had been done," he told NBC News.
"Then two weeks later we find out he was out on bail. Who do you blame for this?"
Monis had been released on bail in December last year on the accessory charge under the old bail laws.
He reappeared in court on May 26, only days after new bail laws came into effect, and again in October over the fresh sexual assault offences.
Monis was deemed in May to pose an "unacceptable risk to interfering with witnesses and endangering the safety of victims and individuals in the community".
But that was said to be offset by tough conditions, including reporting daily to police.
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