Christina Ryan from the Canberra based Advocacy for Inclusion said centres where people were "congregated" for respite and day care were "incubators for violence".

"It's chronic, it's systemic, and can't be dealt with in a piecemeal state-by-state approach," Ms Ryan said.

While giving evidence at a hearing held by the Community Affairs References Committee on Friday, Ms Ryan said many people with disabilities were living in homes where they did not want to be because of the threat of abuse.

She said putting people in dangerous situations would continue to happen after the national rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and pointed to the ACT, which was in the midst of a trial program, as proof.

"We can't keep having governments funding congregate respite arrangements," Ms Ryan said.

The abuse could be physical, financial or psychological and Ms Ryan said she knew of "vicious perpetrators" at one end of the scale while at the other end there were some support people could be "protective to the point of smothering".

She said abuse against people with disabilities was a problem that had for too long been put in the too hard basket.

"Most people don't want to talk about it - it's easier to think about football and racism, frankly," she said.

"We're very tired of this being too bloody hard to deal with."

Ms Ryan said the violence would continue no matter "how many hotlines we have and how many blue cards (held by disability service providers)" people hold.

She said service providers often did not refer serious incidents to outside organisations.

"The main police are their internal service mechanisms," she said.

"They self-monitor, they respond internally to incidents.

"It doesn't automatically go to the police or an external body.

"That's why we need a national independent reporting mechanism complaints body."

Her organisation's publicly available submission to the inquiry into abuse and neglect of people with disabilities in care gave one example of an incident - which was referred to police - of a young man in his mid-twenties who had his head pushed into a wall by a support worker.

The same worker allegedly racially abused the young man by calling him a "Muslim f***" and using phrases such as "my country, my rules".

The submission said the worker, who allegedly at times made the man in his care stand in the corner, was eventually sacked but police did not charge him because of a lack of evidence.

Mary Mallett from Disability Advocacy Network Australia told the hearing companies were making "a fortune running around certifying" disability service providers.

"Something is wrong with a system where every organisation can be certified and this stuff is happening, literally in front of the noses of the people doing the audits," she said.

Sonia Di Mezza from the ACT Disability, Aged and Carer Advocacy Service told the hearing the legal system was set up with the assumption that people did not have disabilities.

She said assault victims who had disabilities were not going to police enough.

"We try to get people to understand what their rights are," she said.

"Sometimes people who are abusers can present in an affable, positive way."

ADACAS' submission outlined several de-identified clients who had allegedly been verbally abused and sexually assaulted.