CANBERRA, June 26 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government has said it is prepared to make it legal for social media websites to hand over vital information about suspected terrorists or terrorist operations, a plan which has on Monday been applauded by the opposition and a former army chief.

On Saturday, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he had met with leading social media websites, telling them they "cannot continue to allow terrorists and extremists to use the internet and the big social media... to spread their poison", hinting that he would head to the upcoming G20 meeting in Germany to back a world-wide agenda which would ensure social media sites pass on dangerous information to authorities.

On Monday, Australia's former army chief Peter Leahy told Sky News that governments deserved more from big social media companies when it comes to clamping down on terrorism, saying it was not only a government problem, but a social obligation for the online giants to pitch in.

"There are many levels to this. Firstly, I think the tech giants deserve to show some social responsibility. They're letting this (terror-related content) on their sites," Leahy said.

"The government is more interested in the encrypted information on the net, the way terrorists are talking, so Facebook, Messenger, Viper, WhatsApp... the encryption on these, we can't break."

"The government needs to say we need some information from you to prosecute criminals, but I think we need to go further."

Also speaking with Sky News, opposition Labor Party MP Andrew Leigh said his party was glad that the government was cracking down on cyber security -- indicating that Labor would back federal legislation in the Parliament if it was "sensible".

"I'm pleased to see the government is talking about this space, remembering that it's only three months since we had Malcolm Turnbull speaking about watering down race hatred laws, saying that free speech was an absolute value," Leigh said on Monday.

"If the government has sensible proposals, then Labor would certainly consider those."

But not all in the industry believe the government intervention in social media would solve the issue of terrorists communicating via encrypted social media channels.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute's (ASPI) Peter Jennings said that governments would always be playing catch-up with online extremist material, declaring it "beyond the capacity of governments to shut this problem down".

"I know, speaking to a senior Google official some time ago, that every day there were about 100,000 posts of beheading videos appearing on the internet. Companies are shutting down these videos as quickly as they can, but the volume of the use of the internet is such that it's always going to be chasing after a problem," Jennings said on Monday.

"It's not really going to be defeated by earnest government offices working under the Commonwealth's crest. I've not seen any success in that field in the past -- I think we need to rely on the strength of our own democratic societies to seek a path through the blatant propaganda."

The G20 meeting is set to take place in Hamburg, Germany next week.