Sam Dastyari arrived with a sack full of zingers and a bundle of regrets

Of course, the subject matter was mostly Dastyari centred - or at least Dastyari adjacent - and as the program threatened to become The Sam Dastyari Comeback Special it was hard to decide whether the former Labor senator had fulfilled his pre-show prediction or made a mockery of it.

In a tweet before the broadcast, Dastyari had described his appearance as "the worst decision I made this week ... I'm out of politics so I'm not sure what I'll actually say tonight but hoping it will be worth watching".

In the event, he didn't for a second appear to be unsure of what to say, and his hopes that it would be worth watching were fulfilled. Love him or hate him, it's hard to take your eyes off him when he's in full flight.

And in full flight he was on Monday night, beginning with a lengthy mea culpa for his sins in the Chinese influence-peddling scandal that brought him undone in 2017.

On political donations, he declared: "The system is broken. I'm a symbol of the system being broken."

Of his political downfall: "I was young. Arrogant. Foolish. And thought I was smarter than everyone else. That's on me ... my out-of-control ego, arrogance, you can put a whole list of reasons on it, led me to these decisions."

And the cost was high: "Journalists parked in front of your house for weeks. Your marriage falls apart. Your entire life collapsing in front of you." So high, he even felt sorry for Liberal MP Gladys Liu.

Tony Jones: "What sort of pressure would she be under?"

"I can only imagine what Gladys Liu is going through ... I've spent the past couple of days trying to call her repeatedly. I think the best thing she can do for herself, for her cause, is to leave parliament. And I say that as someone who has been through that kind of thing."

But when it came to a recurring debate about whether Liu's alleged sins matched his own, Dastyari was less than pleased.

Fellow panellists James Paterson, a Liberal senator and former fellow at the conservative Institute of Public Affairs, was only too happy to return again and again to the details of the Dastyari case in lieu of discussing Liu.

Dastyari responded: "I am not here and I didn't come here tonight to play this game of 'Let's kick Sam' ... I have done what I think a lot more politicians should do. Accept responsibility for their failures.

"I didn't want to be doing this. I didn't want this to be my life. I didn't want it to be, but sometimes in life the only course of action you have, the best course of action you have is to take responsibility and in the case of politics for me it meant leaving. That crushed me."

Both Paterson and panellist John Lee, from the United States Studies Centre, threw plenty of shade Dastyari's way. He threw it straight back.

To Paterson: "We're getting lectured here by the IPA who actually hide every single donation they receive and make."

And to Lee: "I'm getting a lecture from someone who works for the US Study Centre which is registered as a foreign agent in this country..."

Lee: "We're not going to resolve this today but I say elephants are grey. Sam says they're pink. I'll allow the audience to decide."

Dastyari: "That doesn't even make sense."

Jones: "I'm going to leave the colour of elephants..."

Dastyari: "What is this - primary school?"

The zingers came thick and fast.

On the influence of political donations on climate change policy, he proffered: "A mining magnate, Clive Palmer, spent $56 million to shit on Bill Shorten. Can I say that on the ABC?"

Jones: "You just did, Sam."

And then there was the line of the night, music to the ears of anyone who has ever wanted to put a boot through the TV set as a politician repeats the approved line of the day ad nauseam.

After Paterson had committed this very sin, Dastyari shot back: "I don't know if James memorises the talking points of the morning or just eats the document."