"We are many," they say. "We rank amongst the ... 4 million [Australians] with disability plus their families. We could be anyone. We are anywhere."

The women use "humour, art and passion" to "speak for those who cannot speak".

As they explain, "not all of us can speak out and only a few of us can tell our stories. Sometimes the coroners are our biographers".

In April, six divas appeared before the Senate's community affairs committee for a hearing into the abuse of people with disability.

They arrived with a bundle of white roses. Taking turns, the divas read out 40 examples to illustrate the abuse and neglect that happens to Australia's disabled population.

This included the woman with an IQ of less than 25 who was raped by a staff member at her Queensland residential facility in the 1980s. And whose pregnancy was not discovered until she was 20 weeks along.

There was the autistic and epileptic man who drowned in a bathtub in the ACT in 2008, even though he was not to be left alone near water.

And the woman who was locked in a garage and forced to go to the toilet in a bucket by staff taking care of her in NSW in 2013.

With each story, the divas placed a rose on the table in front of them.

On Wednesday, when committee chairwoman Greens senator Rachel Siewert tabled the final report, she, Labor's Claire Moore and the Coalition's Joanna Lindgren each wore a dried white rose pinned to their jackets.

Siewert said they had kept them so they wouldn't forget.

Granted, the Bolshy Divas weren't the only ones to present the committee with harrowing accounts of abuse and neglect. During the 10 months of the inquiry, the senators heard "cruel" and "unlawful" stories about the treatment of disabled Australians.

From unexplained head injuries, bruises and broken bones, to the young woman who couldn't have a female carer to help with toileting and menstruation – the examples piled up like invisible roses.

And yet we still don't know exactly how big the pile is nationwide.

There is no official data on the extent of violence, abuse and neglect of people with disability in Australia. The two main Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys on disability do not collect information on these issues.

This is despite the fact that 4.2 million Australians (nearly one in five) reported having a disability in 2012 and 3.4 million had limited ability in self-care, mobility or communication.

This is also despite the understanding – informed by various surveys – that people with disabilities are at much greater risk of violence and abuse. According to a study cited by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, women with intellectual disability are 50 to 90 per cent more likely to be sexually assaulted than women in the general population.

Complicating matters is that people with a disability are not likely to report abuse any way.

They fear retribution and with good reason. As one disability advocate told the inquiry: "You complain about someone who is providing you with very intimate levels of care and then the management still sends the same person to look after you".

Even more distressingly, if a disabled person does speak out, they are not likely to be believed (or those in charge go for the carpet sweep). Often police don't go ahead with cases because witnesses with disability are not seen as "credible".

But after 161 submissions, six public hearings and a thumping 315-page report, the committee felt it needed to do more than simply recommend a new watchdog and better screening for workers in the disability sector (which they have also done).

On Wednesday evening, they also called for a royal commission.

"Enough is enough," Moore explained.

She has been involved with the community affairs committee since 2002, and said this was far from the first time an inquiry had heard about the abuse of disabled people.

So the senator's anger was fuelled by fact that they were continuing to hear of abuse (not just historical cases) and "no one has stopped it".

For Siewert, a royal commission is vital so that someone has the power to bust their way into institutions – such as residential care, schools and hospitals – that are usually closed shops. And to provide the huge support needed for witnesses to come forward.

Siewert is painfully aware that in the process of people talking about their abuse to the inquiry (some for the first time), victims were re-traumatised.

The government's immediate response is to at least keep the door open to a royal commission. Social Services Minister Christian Porter said the Coalition will "carefully consider" the inquiry findings. Labor wants a "national investigation" but at this stage, stops short of the big RC.

Some might say the royal commission call is a diva thing to do. After all, it will cost a bit of money, there are many other issues competing for attention and intuitively, "action" is needed – not another inquiry.

But at a time when governments have no qualms establishing royal commissions for blatantly political reasons and in a week when abuse is very much on the nation's mind with White Ribbon Day – you have to ask: if some of the most vulnerable members of our society are suffering such horrifying and degrading things, what reason is there not to properly investigate it?