Siege families to learn of police plans

The families of Sydney siege victims will learn some details of police tactics used in the deadly Lindt Cafe incident after police and government lawyers agreed to provide a summary of highly sensitive documents.

Gunman Man Haron Monis and hostages Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson were killed during the 17-hour ordeal in December 2014.

However, the families of Ms Dawson and Mr Johnson remain anxious to know as much as possible about what plans were and weren't carried out, the inquest into the tragedy has heard.

Lawyers for the families of Ms Dawson and Mr Johnson have reached broad agreement with lawyers for the NSW Police Commissioner and the commonwealth government on limited access to details of the top-secret Emergency Action and Deliberate Action plans used in the incident.

Police and commonwealth lawyers had raised objections to details of the plans being made public, citing national security and public-interest immunity.

At a hearing on Friday Phillip Boulten SC, representing the Dawson family, accepted that some details should remain secret.

Mr Boulten said all parties had agreed that police would provide a summary of the action plans to the families, while their lawyers would see the full plans and decide whether the summaries were adequate.

"Generally speaking we accept that there are very important matters of national security and public interest that need to be maintained," he said.

"Our clients are being very reasonable but they are still very anxious to know as much as they can about plans that were considered and executed on the night of the siege."

Gabrielle Bashir SC, representing the family of Tori Johnson, said she agreed with Mr Boulten but "our clients are also anxious about those plans not executed".

Mr Boulten said it was also important that UK police terrorism experts, called in to conduct an independent review of the siege, saw the secret information.

The inquest will next sit on February 11 to review the adequacy of the police summaries of the action plans, ahead of an eight-week session which will review in detail how the December 2014 siege was managed.