The latest terrorism bill contradicts the positive message Malcolm Turnbull has been sending to the Muslim community with plans to extend counter- terrorism control orders to 14-year-olds a "catastrophe waiting to happen", Canberra Muslim leaders have said.
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Australian Muslim Voice president, Diana Abdel-Rahman, said lowering the age for the orders might contravene the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and would make it harder to encourage Muslims to engage with the wider community.
"Control orders on 14-year-olds are a big, big, mistake. The benefits are arguable and the damage [to relations between law enforcement and the Muslim community] is inevitable," she said.
Ms Abdel-Rahman said many western Muslims felt they had been under siege since the September 11 attacks and a large number were now suspicious of all law enforcement agencies.
"The last 14 years have been very tiring," she said. "This is the environment, of suspicion and fear, the current generation of young Muslims has grown up with.
"I recently heard the phrase 'innocent until proven Muslim'. I understand it is the name of a group in Sydney."
Concerns within the Muslim community about the Government's good faith are widespread Fethullah Erdogan, the executive director of Canberra's Bluestar Intercultural Centre, said.
"One of the biggest issues among the Muslim community is that they [Muslims] don't really believe the Government is sincere," he said.
"[The] Government must use better language not to create more hatred."
Ms Abdel-Rahman said knee-jerk legislative responses were counterproductive.
"We don't have to strengthen the laws every time something happens," she said.
"A control order would not have stopped the boy responsible for this month's shooting because the authorities did not know about him. If they had known about him, they wouldn't have needed a new law to deal with him."
A prominent Muslim member of one expatriate community who has lived in Canberra for 25 years urged closer co-operation between Muslims and the government.
"Other Muslim clerics should echo the comments of Parramatta Mosque chairman, Neil El-Kadomi, who has told worshippers 'if you don't like Australia, leave'," he said.
Ms Abdel-Rahman said the change of language and approach by Malcolm Turnbull had been tracking well, but the planned terror legislation was undoing what had been achieved.
"I met Mr Turnbull at the unity meeting at Parliament House [on Tuesday]," she said. "It was good, not just what he said but that he took the time.
"Yes, Muslims should work to engage with the wider community but that is not easy when people feel they are under siege."
She cited a group of Muslim youths she had overheard referring to themselves as "not Australians" despite having been born in this country.
"They had been conditioned by the identification of all Muslims with any wrongdoing by any Muslim into thinking of themselves as outsiders," she said. You have to ask yourself: 'how did we get here?'"
Mr Erdogan said while it wasn't fair to blame Islam for the atrocities of violent radicals, individual Muslims should publicly reject groups such as Islamic State.
"When terrorists claim the Muslim mantle they bear this identity, if only nominally," he said. "We must denounce violence and not fall prey to victimhood."
Archbishop Christopher Prowse, the Catholic Archbishop of Goulburn and Canberra, said radicalisation was a community issue.
"In the rare instance where radicalisation occurs, we need to be able to have a trustful and honest dialogue. We must not create a social environment which is hostile to different ethnicities, race or religions," he said.
The ACT government is also concerned about the proposed extension of control orders – which may require a person to wear a tracking device – to 14-year-olds, saying "more appropriate mechanisms" were available.
