When Q&A invited former Prime Minister John Howard to appear on the program to discuss his autobiography, Lazarus Rising, no one anticipated that the show would make news around the world. Then again, no one could know that audience member and Iraq war protester Pete Gray would choose to make a point about the war by taking off both shoes and hurling them across the studio at the former PM.

Panellists: Bill Shorten, Assistant Treasurer; George Brandis, shadow attorney-general; Randa Abdel Fattah, author and lawyer; Janet Albrechtsen, conservative commentator; and Jonathan Biggins, satirist and performer.

The final Q&A for 2010 was not entirely without drama: a violent thunderstorm closed Sydney airport for much of the night and the plane from Adelaide carrying Liberal Senator Nick Minchin, one of the scheduled panellists for the evening, was diverted to Melbourne.