Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People with disabilities are a marginalised group in Australia. People with disabilities are 29 per cent less likely to take part in the workforce, 2½ times more likely to experience poverty, have lower levels of education, and experience stigma and stereotyping, and isolation and social exclusion. And they experience violence—in all its shapes and forms, such as withholding essential disability aids or supports, being pushed out of wheelchairs, being left stranded and defenceless in their own homes, having their fears or paranoia incited, being left in uncomfortable or humiliating situations, being the victim of chemical or physical restraint, and being subject to sexual violence. Seventy per cent of women with disabilities have experienced sexual violence; 90 per cent of women with intellectual disabilities have experienced rape or sexual assault; and 25 per cent of rapes are against women with disabilities. In Canberra, 46 percent of women who reported violence were women with disabilities.

I commend the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow ministers for committing a Shorten Labor government to a royal commission into violence and abuse against people with disability. I call on the Turnbull government to begin work to establish a royal commission immediately, because the countless harrowing accounts of people with disability being abused and assaulted cannot be ignored. (Time expired)