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.

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.

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.

Canberra's very woolly sheep Chris made famous by his record-breaking 41.1-kilogram coat dies four years after he made headlines around the world.

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

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

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority warns it will be another ugly summer, telling politicians that unless it rains soon, water conditions will get worse.

Australian scientists have weighed Greenland's ice cap melt using satellite technology and their findings are not good.

The call comes as a probe into complaints handling and treatment of small business proposed better access to review schemes and beefed up compensation for taxpayers wrongly targeted by the ATO.

A Snowy Mountains RSL wants charges laid against the local council, which it has accused of desecrating part of a war memorial that a historian says has "state significance".

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

Running or riding hundreds of kilometres for fun, sport, and a physical and mental challenge.

David Glasheen was once a multi-millionaire living in Sydney. But that was a different life. For 22 years, the 76-year-old has been the sole resident of a remote Queensland island and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Queensland's Native Mounted Police massacred thousands of Indigenous people on the colonial frontier, and most of its troopers were Indigenous themselves. It's a difficult legacy for their descendants to come to terms with.

People who experience homelessness are more likely to be exposed to trauma, but experts say creative therapies could help them heal.

Dark-coloured jerseys could lead to poor performance, increased rates of injury, and even jeopardise the careers of young rugby league players, researchers say.

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".

Cardwell residents band together to save a large tree that arborists have declared unsafe due to beach erosion during the recent heavy wet season.

Locals in far-north Queensland say it's "ludicrous" to install an Optus satellite small cell service in a remote Telstra-dominated area.

Scientists fear Cape York's Iron Range (Kutini-Payamu) National Park could take decades to recover after weekend fires.

The swimming pool is more than just a place to take a quick dip, as these seven watering holes around the country celebrate.

It's estimated that African swine fever has killed 25 per cent of the world's pig population. The deadly disease has now reached Timor-Leste, about 650 kilometres from Darwin.

Stuart Morris initially kept walking when he first laid eyes on a massive snake skin in Cairns, but when he saw it a second time he decided to take it home and straighten it out all 7 metres of it.

The Mornington Island Raiders love their footy, but the remote community team are paying exorbitant costs in flights, fuel and accommodation just to attend their matches.

A year after her murder, Toyah Cordingley's name still hangs in shop windows, on posters strung up on trees, and stickers on car bumpers in nearly every street in Cairns.

Robyn Hausler continued paying her mortgage and rates for six years, not realising the house she'd lived in for 20 years wasn't hers anymore. Now a court has ruled she can have her property back.

An innocuous Facebook post has spurred about 40 people to carry a north Queensland grandmother with multiple sclerosis up a steep mountain so she could fulfil a childhood wish.

Witnesses say it was "pandemonium" when a Gold Coast nursing home shut down yesterday after paramedics attended the village to help find emergency accommodation for 70 residents. The closure is believed to be over a contract dispute.

A cold dry air mass moving through the state is causing cool mornings in Queensland, with temperatures dropping as low as -4.8 degrees Celsius, and it's forecast to continue throughout the week.

A federal inquiry will examine the crisis at Earle Haven on the Gold Coast, as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declares state-owned aged-care homes will have nurse-to-patient ratios fixed.

He's a top fighter who made international headlines during the 2018 Commonwealth Games because he fled the athletes' village, and now he wants to fight for Australia.

Regional trials of a world-first digital platform aimed at transforming access to mental health services for young people tracks how participants are feeling in real time.

Gold Coast police are searching for a man and woman after they stopped their car in the middle of the Pacific Motorway before attempting to hijack two vehicles.

Massive wins for Geelong and Brisbane over North Melbourne and Gold Coast respectively have them closing in on a top two finish, while the Bombers are completely dismantled by the Bulldogs.

The proposed state-controlled corridor between Loganholme and Nerang would run parallel to the Pacific Motorway.

Richmond edges West Coast by a goal in a game for the ages, while the Bulldogs closed in on finals by thumping the Giants and Jarryd Roughead kicked six on his special night.

As the congestion issue in south-east Queensland brings traffic to a grinding halt on major roadways and a heightened scrutiny of the public transport system, the ABC takes a look at how commuters are being impacted across the region.

It's described as Big Day Out on the beach, with promoters of Australia's latest music festival promising it will deliver the ultimate party on Coolangatta Beach, but community opposition is growing over the event.

A research team is deployed in response to persistent smoke from a bushfire that has been burning for nearly two months in underground peat on the NSW Mid North Coast.