The
Australian Capital Territory Police was created in 1927, the same year the federal government moved to the ACT, with eleven officers. In that year, the ACT Police merged with the Commonwealth Police and the Federal Narcotics Bureau to form the
Australian Federal Police (AFP), which then took responsibility for law and order in Canberra. the AFP has performed this under contract to the ACT government. The ACT was given its first federal representation in 1949, when it gained a seat in the House of Representatives, the
Division of Australian Capital Territory, In 1974, the ACT and the Northern Territory were each allocated two Senate seats. In 1974, the House of Representatives seat was divided into two, the
Division of Canberra and
Division of Fraser. A third, the
Division of Namadgi, was created in 1996, but was abolished in 1998 after an updated assessment of changes to the regional demographic distribution. while the ALP and the
Liberal Party of Australia each held one Senate seat until 2022. In 1930, the ACT Advisory Council was established to advise the Minister for Territories on the community's concerns and from 1934 the territory had its own
Supreme Court. In 1974 the Council became a
fully elected Legislative Assembly, advising the Minister of the Capital Territory, and in 1979 this was renamed the House of Assembly.
Movements towards self-governance Although there was a push by residents of the ACT for a greater say in the management of the territory, this did not necessarily equate to a desire for self-governance.
John Overall, who served as the head of the NCDC from 1957 to 1972, summarised the distinction in "Canberra: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow": Nevertheless, there were many residents in Canberra who wanted self-government, and there were a number of forces pushing the territory in that direction. In 1973 the Minister for the Capital Territory,
Gordon Bryant, announced that the ACT would have self-government within 12 months. The formation of the Legislative Assembly in 1974 was intended as the significant step towards self-government, but the
Whitlam government, under whose auspices the Assembly was formed, tended to "override or ignore its wishes." Similarly, the subsequent 1975
Fraser government seemed uninterested in the Assembly. However, in February 1976,
Tony Staley accepted the post of Minister for the Capital Territory. Staley had been a supporter of self-government for the ACT, and he proposed a model whereby Canberrans would rapidly gain control of much of the territory's administration. The model found opposition, though, in part because it failed to adequately address the funding arrangements. Overall identified a number of reasons why residents opposed self-government. Along with the previously mentioned fear of increases in taxation or decreases in services, he argued that those living in the ACT would have felt that they already had a voice in the governance of the territory, through federal electoral representation. Canberra also had a high proportion of
public servants who felt that they were already a part of the government, and knew how to work with the system. In spite of the result, the referendum failed to end the debate. There were a number of pressures that continued to push the ACT towards self-government, including: • National consistency of governance. In 1978 the
Northern Territory achieved self-government. The ACT was the only other mainland territory, with a population greater than that of the Northern Territory that was growing faster, so it was suggested that if self-government was appropriate for the Northern Territory, then it must also be appropriate for the ACT. • The re-enfranchisement of the community. Two inquiries had recommended that the ACT needed to provide the community with "the same sort of representative institutions that have been established in other parts of Australia". • Financial pressures. The ACT had enjoyed high quality services through Federal Government funding, to the extent that the Federal Grants Commission report that Australia was subsidising the residents "to the tune of over $200 for every man, woman and child in the Territory." Self-government would allow the ACT to be placed on the same financial footing as that of the other states and the Northern Territory. This was identified by Bill Harris, the head of the ACT Administration just prior to self-government, as the "fundamental reason" for the eventual realisation of self-government in the Territory. In 1988, the new minister for the ACT,
Gary Punch, received a report recommending the abolition of the NCDC and the formation of a locally elected government. Punch recommended that the
Hawke government accept the report's recommendations, and subsequently
Clyde Holding introduced legislation to grant self-government to the Territory in October 1988.
Self-government The enactment on 6 December 1988 of the
Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 established the framework for ACT self-government. The provisions of the Act establishing the ACT as a self-governing territory within the Commonwealth of Australia commenced operation on 11 May 1989, coinciding with the first sitting of the Legislative Assembly at 1
Constitution Avenue,
Civic. The
Australian Labor Party formed the ACT's first government, led by
Chief Minister Rosemary Follett, Although since the commencement of self-government, ACT law has continued to apply in general to the
Jervis Bay Territory under section 4A of the
Jervis Bay Territory Acceptance Act 1915, the ACT as defined under the Self-Government Act 1988 does not include Jervis Bay, which continues to be administered by the Commonwealth. Since 1992, members of the Assembly have been elected by the
Hare-Clark proportional representation system from three multi-member electorates, which replaced the modified
D'Hondt method used in the inaugural election, in which the 17 representatives were elected from a territory-wide electorate. The initial years of self-government were difficult and unstable. A majority of ACT residents had opposed self-government and had it imposed upon them by the federal parliament, and at the first election, 4 of the 17 seats were won by anti-self-government single-issue parties due to a protest vote by disgruntled territorians, The 2024 election returned Labor to sole minority government, with a
confidence and supply agreement reached between the two parties. In 2006, the majority Labor government made sweeping changes to the education system, shutting down 23 schools across the territory. These were made in the face of sustained public opposition, and since then, there have been campaigns from opposition parties and the community to re-open some of them. This included the 2008 election, where it was a major topic. Since the 1993 creation of the National Native Title Tribunal, there have been four separate claims to
Native Title lodged over alienated lands in the ACT by representatives of the
Ngunnawal communities, in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2002. The fourth claim was dismissed. In 2001, the ACT government entered into a cooperative agreement with the Aboriginal community over the management of
Namadgi National Park. The deal no longer exists. In the 1990s, a number of activities which are or were illegal in other Australian states were legalised in the ACT. These include the sale of X-rated pornographic materials (1989) and prostitution in brothels (1992), although brothels are only permitted to operate in the suburbs of
Hume,
Mitchell and
Fyshwick. The personal use of
cannabis was decriminalised in 1992 and abortion was decriminalised in 2002. In 2006, the ACT Government attempted to introduce a law recognising civil unions, but it was overturned by the federal government. ==21st century==