The royal commission into the disability sector a chance to ensure vulnerable voices are heard

But, as the hearings into the abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability gets under way this week, it's important that we don't ignore it or look away. We must not complain of victim fatigue, or describe the proceedings as repetitive, or too hard to listen to.

As some of society's most vulnerable members step up to tell their stories, putting one of the nation's dark shames in the spotlight, we should not shield our eyes from the glare.

This three-year inquiry will be wider in scope than the one examining institutional child abuse and will, among other things, examine whether Australia is living up to UN conventions safeguarding the human rights of those living with a disability.

Chair Ronald Sackville, opening the commission on Monday, said he would delve into traumatic, personal accounts of physical, sexual and other types of abuse wherever it has happened, from private households to shared homes, schools to workplaces, and prisons to hospitals.

"It is truly formidable," he said, as he outlined the task ahead of the royal commission.

"But we cannot complete that task successfully unless people are prepared to tell their stories.

"We have to ensure that unheard voices are finally heard."

Although he this week threatened to boycott the commission over conflicts of interest of two of the seven commissioners, Canberran Craig Wallace has a more straightforward definition of what the commission hopes to achieve.

Speaking in February as the federal government prepared to announce the inquiry, he said he wanted people to see the offences committed on people with disability as abhorrent, in the same way as murder and sexual abuse were.

The long-time disability campaigner has personal experience of the kinds of stories that will surface in the coming years; he spent time in a child rehab facility in NSW in the early 1970s, where a nurse would regularly light his hair on fire at night.

He was also refused medical care for a broken arm during a 10-day camp, where he had no pain relief and was told to stop complaining when he found it hard to operate his own wheelchair.

He says these stories tend to surface readily whenever groups of disabled people gather in a relaxed setting.

But there will be nothing relaxing about this royal commission, where survivors will be telling their stories to the wider public, often for the first time.

"I think our project here is to actually make disability abuse as vile and abhorrent as child sexual abuse, or lighting bushfires for kicks," Wallace told The Canberra Times in February.

"We need to make this an un-Australian thing, that doesn't even form inside people's hearts and minds, let alone actually get acted on.

"We need to make this unthinkable."

But first, Australians must be forced to think about the things that have happened. To not turn the page, or change the channel.

These are important stories that need all the glare we can handle, and much, much more.