Counter-terrorism police fear crucial information may slip through the cracks in major investigations because a national case-management system has not been rolled out, despite repeated requests for almost a decade.
The number of terrorism investigations in Australia is rising, yet officers say some are being jeopardised because each state police force uses a different system for managing investigations.
Fairfax Media understands counter-terrorism police have picked up an increasing amount of communication between terrorism suspects in Sydney and Melbourne in recent months. Both cities remain the overwhelming focus of investigations.
But the country's eight police forces have 18 different systems, and counter-terrorism police, who work in joint state and federal teams, are filing information twice - into two systems.
Sam Mullins, professor of counter-terrorism at George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies, interviewed 11 counter-terrorism officers from NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the Australian Federal Police for a paper published in the latest Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism.
While some officers viewed the issue as simply a hassle, others said it was jeopardising major investigations.
"That would be the number one inhibitor that we've got today, because we miss out on so much intelligence," one Victorian officer said. "And missing [out] on something may well be that needle in a haystack."
A federal police officer said it needed fixing urgently because, if "a piece of information slips through the cracks, that may then have a ... significant implication".
A senior NSW officer said having to duplicate information was "a pain in the butt, it's costly, it's time-consuming".
The pace and frequency of terrorism investigations has skyrocketed since September 2014, when the national threat level was raised to probable.
In some cases, police have been forced to move on rapidly radicalised individuals within hours.
There is "significantly more pressure" on information sharing, a federal police officer said.
Chief executive of the Police Federation of Australia Mark Burgess said police forces were getting an isolated picture of major incidents and events.
"One piece of information added to another piece added to another piece could become something vital," he said. "Sometimes the second, third or fourth piece is being missed."
The federation has been lobbying for a $100 million national system, funded by criminals' confiscated assets, since 2007.
In 2008, an inquiry into the bungled case of Queensland doctor Mohamed Haneef recommended a national system be adopted "as a matter of urgency".
Dr Haneef was detained, charged and had his visa cancelled on incorrect allegations of aiding a terrorist cousin in Britain. He was later awarded about $1 million in compensation.
The inquiry found poor information sharing between Queensland police and the federal police meant evidence was not properly consolidated, preventing police from properly weighing up the case.
Federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan said national security and counter-terrorism legislation "is under constant review to ensure our law enforcement, security, and intelligence agencies have the tools and powers they need".
A feasibility study in 2009-10 highlighted a need to conduct further analysis on the economic and legal impacts associated with a national system.
The government spent $9.8 million last year on a two-year pilot of a national criminal intelligence database.
Mr Burgess said a case-management system would be a logical extension but would require legislative change across all states.
The case-management system is the end-to-end process of managing a criminal case from the initial response to all aspects of the investigation, such as forensics and intelligence, to the prosecution.
