For Helen Bender - a young woman grieving but galvanised by the recent suicide of her father - Monday night's Q&A was a moment to take her message to a national audience, and she wasn't about to waste it - politicians and their party positions be damned.

"One of the last things my father said: 'No one is listening, why are you wasting my time?,'" she said, having told of burying her father George on Saturday in the shadow of his death after a decade-long fight against coal seam gas exploration on his land.

Helen Bender tells politicians on Q&A they are not listening on the issue of coal seam gas. Credit:Screenshot, ABC

"I don't think anyone is listening ... I don't think the nation is listening, I don't think any one of you politicians care. You are a turntable, you walk in, walk out, you talk the talk, you are here for show. You are not listening."

When Q&A went bush to Toowoomba - with guest host Tom Ballard having his second shot this year sitting in, with aplomb, for Tony Jones - it was that kind of night: passionate, personal, and generally a bad night for politicians, unless you were the mayor of Toowoomba. Paul Antonio led citizens of regional Australia in raising their voices. In the audience and on the panel, others followed suit - a daughter grieving her late father; a mother lamenting the plight of her ill son; a musician, Katie Noonan, making the most of her moment in a more political spotlight.