Canberra to update laws on terror groups

The federal government is reportedly set to expand the rules for proscribing terrorist groups after intelligence agencies said Hizb ut-Tahrir could not be listed under current laws.

The group's Sydney-based spokesman Uthman Badar was removed from an Opera House cultural event on Tuesday night after it was discovered he was to make a speech titled "Honour killings are morally justified".

Proscribing the group would make it illegal for anyone in Australia to be a member.

The government has investigated proscribing Hizb ut-Tahrir a terrorist group, while the former coalition government under John Howard was forced to back down on its plans to do so on ASIO advice, The Daily Telegraph reports.

The group has accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of demonising jihadist fighters in Iraq and Syria and of over-reacting to the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Meanwhile, the federal government on Wednesday proposed introducing legislation into parliament in July giving wider powers to the nation's spy agencies in their pursuit of terror threats.