I have given up hope of any of the front bench alumni on both sides of the house doing anything that will lead to the betterment of this country or to the sustainability of the planet we live on. If they put as much effort into those vitally important topics as they do into thinking up insults and derogatory catchphrases then Australia would have an economy others could only dream of. 

As for handing around a lump of coal in Parliament to proffer it as a safe future fuel for electricity generation, well I can only hang my head in utter disbelief and shame. 

There is no such thing as clean coal. There never will be. British, German and American scientists have all tried to find the solution and in the end found that pursuing it would cost more than investing in other forms of green energy. 

Until we can find a way for renewables to be flexible enough to cater for base load situations, and that will happen, we need to commission gas fired power stations to cater for this. The technology exists now to make them cleaner than the fictitious “clean coal” will ever be. If you are in a position to travel around California as we were recently luckily enough to do you will see a massive investment in solar, wind and now tidal movement power generation. 

Gas power stations, along with the nuclear ones they already have are used for flexibility but these will be done away with in the future by the battery technology they are already investing in. 

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, this is the “innovation nation” we need to be building – not talking about how to dig up and burn yesteryear's fuel in a less dirty manner.

LAST week, ABC online presented my daughter Lucy's ongoing battle with Lyme disease. It was her story about her struggle over the past 11 years. It was a cry for help.

Many hundreds of comments were made; the majority were rude, disrespectful and ill-informed. We were shocked beyond belief that people with absolutely no clue about this disease suggested it doesn't exist, her illness in mental, it's a scam, etc. 

We are fully aware that Lyme does not exist in Australia, apparently. God knows we've been told by the medics over and over. 

The thing is, we were diagnosed in America from a real lab, with real positives, not false positives. And yet coming back to Australia, the diagnosis, once in Australian waters, just mysteriously disappeared. 

I'm not interested in discussing what is and isn't Lyme and where it is and is not. I'm here to tell you it is here in Australia. It's in our family. 

For 11 long years, we have battled an illness that has taken over our lives, and sadly fought a system that does not want to know. 

I have a daughter who is three weeks off her 21st birthday. She's beautiful and she's dying. We have no doctor, no hospital, no support outside Australia willing to help us. 

I'm begging, that's right, begging someone to stop shuffling papers, stop talking, and help us. Is this not a basic human right? 

How many times will Sanders Road near Coles have to be resealed? This is what happens when private contractors do the work, it’s all about making money and not about doing the job right the first time.

I know because my father was working for the RTA for 38 years doing the same job and he didn't have to go back several times to fix the road.

I want to know who pays for all these jobs when they have to keep coming back and doing it over and over