I always respond with tears when ever anyone tells me they have MS. Regular readers may remember that when my sister died in 2007, it was a stroke which finally killed her but MS had chipped away at her ability to walk, to talk, to see.

But for Kavanagh it was also a catalyst. She has done a lot of work to stop the disease – diet, exercise, meditation - but the onset of MS had one huge positive. It focused her academic research on disability – and the effect that having a disability has on women. 

Now she is set to reveal extraordinary data, reported at the Population Health Congress in September and soon to be published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, on the lives of girls and women with disability over the age of 15, based on the 2012 Australian Bureau of Statistics Survey on Personal Safety.

Kavanagh’s figures reveal an even worse situation for women with disability – nearly one-third reported sexual violence, compared with 15 per cent of other women. Exactly one-quarter reported partner violence, compared to 13 per cent of other women. And 35 per cent reported emotional abuse, compared to 19 per cent of other women.

Those figures are high – but they are also seriously underreported, says Kavanagh. Why? Because those figures only count the women with disabilities who can speak for themselves, not those who have trouble communicating, not those who need Auslan interpreters, not those who may not even understand what is happening to them.

Just one woman could share with the Senate inquiry the story of a taxi driver who raped her. Once the CCTV footage was checked, it showed four more women  - that is, five women who were sexually assaulted 33 times in 34 days in 2014. 

According to evidence before the senate inquiry, the taxi driver had been driving for disability services for over four years. The evidence from Bolshy Divas said: “Support workers for the women who could not speak said that their behaviour had changed dramatically.”

Last week, the report of the Senate inquiry into violence, abuse and neglect against people with disability in institutional and residential settings was tabled  and among the recommendations were just a handful specific to women.

The committee recommended further investigation of the access to justice needs of specific groups such as women; that the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children must be updated to include institutional and disability accommodation settings; and that there must be increased funding to support women with disability escaping domestic violence.

But Kavanagh says there must also be a concerted effort to improve the status of women with disability.

There is, she says, evidence of important differences between women with and without disabilities in terms of all forms of violence; partner emotional abuse; and stalking and harassment; and her data estimates that in each of these categories the problems are around 50 per cent worse.

They are treated as if they are partial women but bear twice the brunt of discrimination. What will the government do to protect those to whom we never listen?