It took young Ethan Egart just 27 seconds to steal the show on Monday night's Q&A - and perhaps to save his 10-year-old mate from deportation.

The Darwin boy used a video question to raise the plight of his friend, a 10-year-old with autism. In the process, he won the hearts and minds of the panel, the studio and the viewing audiences - and, if that reaction was any gauge, he should have won over the decision-makers who hold the fate of his friend in their hands.

"On the 27th of April,' Ethan explained, "our government is going to deport a 10-year-old boy who is perfectly normal in every way. He can read and ride a bike. But he has autism. I went to after-school care with this boy and he can't speak - but he can use sign language to communicate with us. If he can get along with us and we can get along with him, why does he have to leave?"

As host Tony Jones explained, this is a case involving a boy, the son of a nurse from the Philippines, whose work visa is at risk after eight years because of her son's autism - he is deemed a potential burden on the health system.

"Thank you so much for standing up and having a voice," responded panellist Jane Burns, youth mental health advocate and the mother herself of an autistic child. "It sounds a terrible situation," acknowledged government representative Andrew Robb. Comedian Dave Hughes said it best: "It sounds horrifying."

Robb explained that he knew from ministerial experience that "the [immigration] department has a set of rules".

These include, thankfully, an appeal process and ultimate discretion by the minister to intervene - a result all present agreed sounded like the right outcome. The lesson, if it ends up that way, is both heart-warming and worrying: that justice arrives not naturally, but via the simple words of wisdom from a lad sending a question to a panel show.

The world generally is not that simple, as the rest of Monday night's debate was there to remind us. But in keeping with the spirit of Ethan's powerful moment, this was a particularly potent and at times refreshingly human episode of a program that often gets bogged in partisan slugfests.

Whatever their political persuasion, the panel's government fodder is often by definition the main villain. But as he has done before, Andrew Robb put a human face on politics in speaking with quiet but frank power of his battle with depression. Derryn Hinch - a man on his second liver, it was noted - discussed his battle with the bottle: "I used to drink for Australia." Of Tony Abbott's notorious weekend chugging of a beer, the reformed wine-drinking Human Headline declared; "Down, down down. If that makes you an Aussie bloke, I don't want to be one."

And Dave Hughes recalled his dark days as a 21-year-old, when booze and weed took him to the confessional ear of first his mother and then a doctor. "When I walked out of that doctor's surgery I felt so much better, just having told people about it. The road to recovery started then."

Moments like these were Q&A at is best - essential national discussions springing from the stories that illuminate an issue. Melbourne - in a rare outing as host - delivered one of the more thoughtful programs of the year. In keeping with local tradition, there were even some rowdy if indecipherable protesters hollering from the audience - but it was a young boy's quiet, questioning voice that made its point best.

Ethan asked his question - now we await his answer.