The ACT government has yet to hire a director for their response team to the final recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, despite promising a report by June.
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Positions for the team, including the director and senior legal policy advisors, were advertised earlier this month and only closed on Tuesday.
The ACT attorney-general Gordon Ramsay said the government would be "providing a government response to the Royal Commission's recommendations by June 2018".
"The government is developing a consultation paper on how to implement the Royal Commission's recommendations in the ACT."
Bravehearts founder and executive director Hetty Johnston said the ACT government was "well behind the eight ball".
"It [the royal commission] hasn't snuck up on us; this has been such an important inquiry," Ms Johnston said.
"If the ACT government hasn't prepared itself to respond appropriately then that's surprising and incredibly disappointing."
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The royal commission delivered its final report in December last year with a list of recommendations but it had previously suggested a national redress scheme in 2015. The federal government announced in 2016 it would establish the scheme with the co-operation of the states and territories.
The positions for director of the Royal Commission Team, as well as senior legal policy advisor and policy advisor, were all advertised on the ACT government's jobs site this year between February 13 and February 27.
The positions are temporary - available only until June 2019 - to help "with the development of the Commonwealth led Redress Scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse and response to the Royal Commission's law reform recommendations", according to the job posting.
In the selection documents for the position, the ACT government details how a extremely qualified legal professional would need to manage the response team's workload.
The director would "lead the policy work associated with working with the Commonwealth on the development of the redress scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse".
They and team would also need to "develop legislation on matters relevant to the work of the team".
Despite not having filled the positions, a spokesman for attorney-general Mr Ramsay said there were already existing staff working on the ACT government's response to the royal commission's final report.
"Work on the ACT government's formal response to the Royal Commission's Final Report is well under way. As committed, the government will provide a formal response by June 2018," the spokesman said.
At the same time the government has said it will also consider legislation to locally override the church's "Ellis defence" similar to what is being legislated in Victoria and Western Australia.
The Ellis defence is named after John Ellis, who was abused as an altar boy in the 1970s. Mr Ellis tried to sue the Catholic church in 2007, only for the church to successfully argue it didn't exist in a legal sense, so couldn't be sued to compensate victims of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy.