The Federal Government’s emergency response plan to COVID-19 made no mention of people living with a disability, a royal commission has heard. Senior Counsel Assisting Kate Eastman SC said people with a disability and their advocates “watched and waited” for the Government to come up with a plan. But people living with disability were conspicuously absent.

The Royal Commission into Disability heard that when there was still no plan by April, a group of some 70 disability organisations issued an open letter imploring the Government to address pandemic measures specifically for the disability sector.