Until September 11, Australia had no national laws on terrorism. Political violence was dealt with by the ordinary criminal law. Since then we have passed a litany of new anti-terror statutes. In an era punctuated by terrorist attacks starting with New York and Washington and followed by those in Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai and elsewhere, new laws were needed. Yet while Australia needed anti-terror laws, we have gone from no law to too much law that raises a host of other concerns. In the five years following September 11, we enacted 37 new federal laws (with several more enacted by the States and Territories), or around one new law every seven weeks.