Dave Hughes lights up Q&A

The biting wit of comedian Dave Hughes dominated ABC’s Q&A last night.

Hughes, who tore into Australian television personalities at the Logies last month, was equally scathing about national political figures and international leaders on the panel show.

Labor leader Bill Shorten and the party's controversial 'Australia First' ad became an easy target for Hughes when fellow panellist Labor Senator Lisa Singh was asked to defend it.

The Tasmanian pollie said she was “incredibly disappointed” in the ad, and was pleased her leader, Bill Shorten “reacted so swiftly to have it pulled”.

But then stand-in host Virginia Trioli pointed out it wasn’t pulled all that quickly. Shorten recorded the ad, Trioli noted, opening the way for Hughes.

“Is he colour blind, is he? Seriously, was he there? Was he there, Lisa, when it was recorded?”

Singh replied she did not know whether a green screen had been used for Mr Shorten’s part of recording the ad or not.

“It certainly wasn’t a brown screen,” Hughes replied.

He also compared Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's meeting with US President Donald Trump with a teenage fan meeting Justin Beiber.

“The vision was disturbing for me. I think Malcolm looked like a 13-year-old girl meeting Justin Bieber. It was too sycophantic,” he said.

“He looked like he was on The Bachelor trying to get a rose.”

When the panel was asked about the French election defeat of right-wing firebrand Marine Le Pen by the youthful outsider Emmanuel Macron and the low approval ratings of Trump, Hughes gave a typical left-field response.

 “A man beat a woman and a man had a 25-year age difference with his wife — so similar,” he said.

“And a man who has never, ever run for any office before. A man basically with no idea is now their president. Very similar to America. It’s polar opposite, but sort of similar.”