As far as I know, both Clipsal and PDL make an unswitched version of their socket outlets.
Unswitched sockets do exist, but as far I know it is not legal to have them directly connected to a permanently live circuit. In other words you couldn't just wire up a house with unswitched GPO's instead of normal switched ones. I don't have the book here, but I think the rule was that it has to be controlled by a switch within 1 or 1.8 metres (something like that) from the socket. As Trumpy says, they're used in out of the way locations but also on things like inverters or generators where the switch is elsewhere.
There is also a Clipsal GPO that is self switching; as the plug is inserted it pushes the contacts to the side where they make with the live connections. We have them at the back of our laboratory benches, behind locked panels but I have never seen them used for domestic use and not sure they would be approved for that.
I do recall something about home made multi outlet powerboards years ago which weren't legal because they had no switches. The first commercially made generation of these powerboards I recall (made by Kambrook in the late 70's) did indeed have one switch per socket but for quite a while now switches have been non existant. Has the regulation changed, or are they relying on the fact that the mains lead on these powerboards is actually less than the legal distance between socket and switch, and thus rely on the GPO switch into which said powerboard is plugged into?
