Canberra Now: Barr to appoint extra minister; early bushfire season

Welcome to Tuesday! We're in for a cloudy day today, with patches of light frost in the early morning. There is also a slight chance of a shower. It dropped to 3.9 degrees overnight and we're in for a top of 11.

Sit back, relax. Here's what's making headlines.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has announced he will appoint an eighth minister to his cabinet, less than a week after Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris came under fire for being spread too thin across her portfolios.

The ACT's seven ministers are stretched across 31 portfolios, with deputy chief minister Yvette Berry holding six and disability minister Rachel Stephen-Smith holding five.

Mr Barr on Monday called for expressions of interest from his backbench

Read more from Katie Burgess here.

On Tuesday, ACT Emergency Services Agency commissioner Dominic Lane will declare that the bushfire season will start on September 1, a month earlier than usual in the ACT.

The move comes as BOM forecasts a 50-50 chance of an El Nino event - which would increase the risk of extreme weather events including wildfires, heatwaves and dust storms - forming in 2018.

Read more from Blake Foden's story here.

Clubs in Canberra will get cash or a discount for each poker machine they voluntarily surrender before next February, under a new plan to reduce the number of gaming machines in the city to 4000.

Labor and the Greens agreed to cut the number of electronic gaming machine licences by July 2020 as part of their power-sharing deal struck in 2016.

As of April, there were 4981 licences in circulation, although only 4498 machines were in use.

Read Katie Burgess and Kirsten Lawson's story here.

To celebrate the National Portrait Gallery’s twentieth anniversary as an institution, twenty portraits of outstanding Australian individuals have been commissioned for the permanent collection.

This is the largest undertaking for the Gallery’s commissioning program in its twenty-year existence.

20/20: Celebrating 20 years with 20 new portrait commissions will be on display from October 20 to February 10, 2019, when the gallery will close for six months to deal with structural problems.

Karen Hardy has the story.

And in sport...

Capital Football is facing a referee revolt on the eve of the Canberra Premier League finals series amidst claims abuse of officials has reached its worst point in 10 years.

Up to 40 referees have converged on two meetings during the past month as frustration about Capital Football's failure to act on the poor behaviour reaches boiling point.

Caden Helmers has the story.