DAVID Hicks could be back in Australia by the end of the year, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said.

Mr Downer would not comment on whether the government was trying to get the Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee back home before this year's election, expected to be held in October or November.

But he said that if Hicks' trial went ahead as US authorities had promised, the Adelaide man could be home this year.

"If the trial proceeds and proceeds quickly ... then it'll be possible to get Mr Hicks back to Australia by the end of the year, either to serve in a prison in Australia or of course just to be released, depending on the result of the trial," Mr Downer said on Channel 9.

Hicks was captured among Taliban forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and has since been held by the US military in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba without trial.

American prosecutors allege in a charge list that Hicks committed attempted murder in violation of the law of war and provided material support from terrorism.

He faces life imprisonment if convicted.

Charges against Hicks have not yet been formally laid.

Mr Downer said the government was trying to ensure that the trial went ahead as quickly as possible.

"Assuming that the trial goes ahead on schedule, whether David Hicks is convicted or he is acquitted, and we obviously make no judgment about that, that he should be able to come home to Australia before the end of the year," he said.

"If he's convicted, we've made an arrangement with the Americans which was confirmed to me 10 days ago by the secretary of defence Robert Gates that David Hicks will be able to serve his sentence or the remainder of his sentence in Australia.

"If he's acquitted, of course, he will be allowed to go."

Mr Downer said the timing was not linked to the election but to the fact that the Hicks' case had gone on for five years.

While fellow Australian detainee Mamdouh Habib was eventually released when the US authorities said they did not plan to charge him, the Americans were determined to prosecute the case against Hicks, Mr Downer said.

But the trial had been delayed by legal wrangling over the military commission process, he said.

"It's taken an interminable time and hopefully it can be resolved pretty soon," he said.

"If the Americans decided that they weren't really going to go ahead with the trial, as has been flagged to us, well that would come as an enormous surprise to us and we'd have to deal with that situation if it arose."

• David Hicks Case Information

United States authorities insist there's nothing to suggest David Hicks' mental health is suffering.

They turned down an Australian request to send in an independent psychologist and instead had their own doctors check on the psychiatric health of the Adelaide-born father of two, who's been locked up in Guantanamo Bay for five years.

The Guantanamo doctor gave Hicks a clean bill of health, indicating there was nothing to suggest the Australian terror suspect was suffering depression or anxiety.

But the conditions he lives under would undoubtedly test the mettle of even the most mentally healthy.

During a parliamentary hearing today, senators were given a rundown of Hicks' surroundings and daily routine in the US military prison in Cuba.

Last December he was moved to Camp Six, described this week as more humane by the US commander in charge at Guantanamo.

Hicks lives in a cell 3.6 by 2.3 metres that receives no direct sunlight, is climate controlled at 25 degrees Celsius and has glass observation panels for prison staff to check detainees aren't trying to commit suicide.

He sleeps on a double bunk bed, but has no roommate, and has a plastic table, a seat and bookshelf in his cell for reading and writing.

But the bookshelf is mostly empty. He has 52 books but is only allowed two in his cell at any one time.

Toilet paper is rationed - he's allowed 30 sheets at a time - because others at Guantanamo have used it to block the toilets and cause flooding.

The Americans describe it as a security issue.

Hicks is kept in his cell for 22-hour stretches. For two hours a day - which can be at any time of the day or night - he is allowed into the exercise yard.

But, for whatever reason, he was refused the privilege 21 times last month, meaning he was in his cell for 24 hours.

AAP

• David Hicks Case Information

Businessman Dick Smith has given $60,000 to support the campaign to free Australian terror suspect David Hicks.

Sky News reports the businessman as saying he is angry with the Howard government's neglect of Hicks and plans to give more to help secure a fair trial.

Mr Smith's announcement on Saturday came at the same time as the release of a computer generated image of the 31-year-old held at the US military camp in Cuba.

The image shows the strain of five years at Guantanamo Bay.

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• David Hicks Case Information

TERRY Hicks looks tired. His weatherbeaten face looks particularly craggy, his eyes are moist and he moves ponderously.

The Adelaide-based father of terror suspect David Hicks has been up since 3am fulfilling a string of media commitments highlighting his son's predicament.

"We did Insight in Sydney and now this: it's been pretty full [-on]," he said.

Mr Hicks was in Bungendore last night, presenting the inaugural Art Overboard awards at Cafe 2621.

The awards reward Australian art with a social or political theme, an area of obvious interest to Mr Hicks, whose five-year crusade to bring his son home from Guantanamo Bay has become an all-consuming cause.

Apart from the constant media engagements, he must liaise with lawyers and like-minded support groups, lobby politicians and speak at functions such as last night's.

Mr Hicks said the past few weeks had been particularly hectic. Charges of attempted murder and providing material support to a terrorist organisation were recently heralded against his son, who has spent five years detained at Guantanamo Bay. Public opinion seems finally to have increased pressure on the Government to do something about Hicks's incarceration. His father is frank about the toll it has exacted on him: "People I know say, 'God, you've aged over the last three years'. You do start noticing. You do slow down."

Mr Hicks's campaign is one of the reasons he declined a recent request from the Australian Democrats to stand as a Senate candidate in South Australia.

Had he accepted, he believes he would have been seen as a partisan, and therefore a less effective advocate for his son.

• David Hicks Case Information