Bradley Lester Grey, 54, pleads not guilty in the ACT Supreme Court to charges of allegedly telling prospective sex workers they would need to perform acts with him to prove they were right for the role.

The ACT's top law officer says federal police should not waste their time chasing Canberrans who use small amounts of cannabis as he urges Christian Porter not to interfere with new laws.

One of Australia's former top police officers says he is not guilty of the alleged offences, which his lawyer describes as "trivial".

The Sydney and Melbourne buildings have served as the gateway to Canberra for decades. But time and neglect have taken their toll on the icons, which now form a crumbling entrance to the capital's lake and parliamentary precinct.

ACT water police spent Wednesday morning trying to tie up an unwilling Canberran that had found itself in Lake Burley Griffin. According to a witness, the roo was eventually rescued and hopped off towards the High Court.

Canberra's youth detention centre issues an apology and an undisclosed financial settlement after an Indigenous teenager filed a lawsuit alleging her human rights had been violated when she was separated from her peers and her belongings for two months.

It's impossible to count the millions spent on Australia's biggest police hunt, two trials, two High Court challenges, a judicial inquiry and 19 years of imprisonment.

One year out from the ACT election, Liberal Leader Alistair Coe is confident he will win government. The only Liberal to have achieved that, Kate Carnell, says it's a tough ask.

Despite being home to dairies, orchards and grain crops, the rural shire of Moira in Victoria has been told it's 0.1 per cent short of agriculture employment to qualify for a drought assistance grant.

It will take a test case a Canberra smoker who police decide to arrest and charge to determine what the law actually is.

Sackings demanded and threats to withhold hundreds of thousands of dollars are at the centre of a clash between an outback community and a Commonwealth-owned business.

Despite his home being raided four years ago, Roger Uren has now been arrested and charged with breaching national secrecy rules.

Researchers say an online tool to help understand where Australia's Bogong moths have disappeared to is starting to show promising results.

The Opposition Leader acknowledges the mountain his party must climb if it hopes to end 19 years of Labor government.

The ACT Government is hitting back at warnings from the United Nations that legalising cannabis will breach international law, telling the body to instead focus on the United States and Canada.

If you're a Canberra renter who loves pets and is fond of hanging art, there's good news. New laws coming into effect today will make it easier for renters, but there are fears it could lead to a downturn in rental properties.

More than a dozen live venues and nightclubs across Canberra shut down in the 2018 financial year, but the Government hopes a new plan to make a racket will turn that trend around.

The Australian Federal Police is assessing whether to suspend officer Ivan Kovacic after he allegedly committed an act of indecency on a woman he had invited to his apartment with her two friends to try some craft beer.

Disability royal commission chair Ronald Sackville said commentators were discouraging people from telling their stories to the commission, but critics say the real discouragement is the absence of appropriate supports.

Three accused Rebels bikies who appealed to the High Court to overturn an order preventing them from associating with one another have lost their bid, clearing the way for the NSW Police Commissioner to impose strict restraints on them, including a curfew and restricted mobile phone possession.

A 27-year-old man arrested over a dramatic shooting in Canberra yesterday, has faced the ACT Magistrates Court on nine charges, including shooting at a woman and trying to steal her car.

Lea Powell had to leave teaching after years working as a casual became too hard to manage but she was just one of more than 600 workers in the ACT's health and education systems who have been constant casual for more than five years.

Murray River water destined for Adelaide will be reallocated to farmers upstream so they can grow feed for their livestock, as part of a federal drought stimulus package announced today.

The Government's latest drought relief package includes more funding for councils and cheap loans for farmers and agribusiness, as well as a deal with the SA Government to secure 100 gigalitres of water.

A decade of dry conditions and lower rainfall has left parts of northern Australia facing an early and "above normal" bushfire risk in parts of northern Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Rape victims are being made to wait for hours in the clothes they were assaulted in before being examined, or sometimes not examined at all, a damning auditor-general report reveals, highlighting the lack of qualified staff.

Florists say deceptive advertising is tricking customers into thinking they're buying local flowers when they're not. One businesswoman says the practice has cost her as much as $80,000.

The Queensland Government plans to crackdown on the illegal dumping of commercial fishing nets, known as ghost nets.

New research finds each feral cat in Australia will kill 740 animals a year. Together with their domesticated cousins, cats are killing about three million animals a day.

Celebrity chef Maggie Beer says nothing can forgive the abysmal standard of meals given to some aged care residents as the royal commission into the sector hears people were served meals from trolleys near maggot-infested rubbish bins.

Letters of solidarity and more than 400 Aboriginal 'passports' will be delivered to Manus Island refugees as a group of boats set sail for Papua New Guinea.

In the depths of rural Queensland is a fossil deposit so amazing that Sir David Attenborough regards it as one of the most important palaeontological sites in the world.

Polystyrene balls were strewn across three bays on a pristine north Queensland island after coming in with the tide from an unknown source, forcing locals into action with vacuums and dustpans.

Workplace Health and Safety is investigating after a crane comes into contact with powerlines in Far North Queensland, injuring two people and killing one.

A 21-year-old woman suffers serious leg injuries in an attack by what is believed to be two sharks in Great Barrier Reef waters off Cape York Peninsula.

They travelled across the world in the 1950s and '60s to build a new life cutting cane in the steamy paddocks of north Queensland. Now Basques return to learn the story of their ancestors.

There are concerns, and equally hopes, that an extension to a ban on live sheep exports and cruelty charges against a live exporter are eroding the livestock exporting industry.

On a remote stretch of beach on the west coast of Cape York, rangers were stunned to see the extent of the rubbish strewn across an area used by turtles during nesting season.

Australian icon Les Hiddins is back and instead of publishing another book, the Bush Tucker Man has gone digital, with a searchable website and a social media account.

The survival of a tourist allegedly stabbed in broad daylight at a busy backpacker hostel in Far North Queensland is a "pure fluke" after major arteries in her neck were missed by "mere millimetres", police say.

The massive yacht crushed several smaller boats as it came to a juddering halt at the Cairns Marlin Marina in Queensland.

A luxury superyacht has crashed while attempting to moor at a Cairns marina, narrowly avoiding a potential disaster on the busy tourist strip.

Scientists are in a race against time to map "extraordinary and complex" ancient fish traps on one of Australia's most remote islands.

An ominous drone photo of sharks circling a whale beached near Albany in WA snaps top prize at this year's Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year awards, with the photographer saying the scene was "unreal".

Witnesses say neighbours tried in vain to rescue a man from a burning vehicle after the ute exploded on a Cairns street, describing the scene as "horrific".