Disability advocates have slammed the federal government's "astounding silence" over a landmark Senate report, which called for a royal commission into disability abuse more than four months ago.
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Amid debate over whether there should be a royal commission into the financial sector, there is frustration that desperate pleas for a high-level national investigation into disability abuse have so far been ignored.
Samantha Connor, who gave evidence to the Senate inquiry last year, said abuse was "ongoing and endemic" and "nobody seems to be doing anything about it".
"I just look at [the banks debate] and go, 'what?' Are these people's priorities? The behaviour of banks rather than human life?" she told Fairfax Media on Tuesday.
Last November, the Senate's community affairs committee recommended the royal commission after it heard "shocking" and "cruel" examples of violence and neglect around Australia.
This included stories of a young man with severe quadriplegia who was found suffocated, a woman who was locked in a garage and forced to go to the toilet in a bucket, and a women with an IQ of less than 25 who was raped and whose pregnancy was not discovered until 20 weeks later.
The report found that while there are no clear national statistics on the prevalence of violence against people with disability, there is "overwhelming anecdotal evidence".
The Turnbull government said it would "carefully consider" the 30 recommendations.
When asked for an update on the Coalition's response, a spokeswoman for Social Services Minister Christian Porter gave a very similar response.
"The government strongly supports the Senate committee's inquiry ... and is carefully considering the inquiry's findings and recommendations to ensure a safer future for people with disability as the National Disability Insurance Scheme rolls out."
She said federal and state governments were developing a national quality framework for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
But Ms Connor, who is a member of disability activist group, the Bolshy Divas as well as vice-president of People with Disability Australia, said since the report had been handed down, she had become aware of about 30 more cases of abuse.
"These aren't individual, one-off incidents," she said.
She also noted that the NDIS would only cover about 460,000 participants, while more than 4 million Australians report having a disability.
Disability Advocacy Network Australia chief executive Mary Mallett, who also appeared before the inquiry, agreed "unfortunately" this was not a historical issue.
"I could ring any one of the advocacy organisations around the country ... and be given an example right now of a client being abused."
She lamented that the "trend" is governments will "just sit and do nothing for a long time on these issues".
"It is very frustrating."
While Labor senators on the inquiry supported the call for a royal commission, the Labor leadership had not gone as far. Disability spokeswoman Jenny Macklin has backed an "independent national investigation" but not specifically called for a royal commission.
Greens senator Rachel Siewert, who chaired the inquiry, said disability abuse "should be an issue of national shame".
Senator Siewert also cautioned that it had taken "a lot of guts" for people to speak out to the committee and some witnesses were now back living in the facilities with the people who abused them.
