"Politicians are using young, innocent, in pain children as political bullets, that is unacceptable."

It was an emotionally-charged end to last night’s Q&A, when queer student Carter Smith challenged the panel over the roll back of the Safe Schools program.

“Kids and students need to be taught that it is okay not to fit into the accepted norm early, yet these changes and attacks on the Safe schools program are trying to take that away,” he said.

Smith went on to ask for a commitment from Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.

“I’ve always been proud to see Mr Andrews standing up for the LGBTI community and I would like to know; will he continue this fight, even in the face of backlash and what will he do to ensure that people are educated on these issues and also that kids are kept safe?”

Andrews, who earlier in the evening questioned the message a same-sex marriage plebiscite would send to young people, promised to continue to fight.

“This program works, it saves lives,” he said.

“It’s here to stay. If the federal government wants to tinker with it and compromise it we will fund it fully and deliver it properly in every government secondary school across our state, no questions asked.”

“Until we’ve got every school running this program and every school is a safe place where everyone gets treated equally and where who you are is good enough. No more, no less. You’re valued, respected, you’re safe.”

Josh Frydenberg jumped in to defend his government’s actions in reducing the program.

Tony Jones then threw back to Carter, asking him what effect hearing such debates has on the well-being of young LGBTI Australians.

“Politicians are using young innocent, in pain children as political bullets, that is unacceptable,” he said.

“It’s still creating this idea that they are different, that they are wrong that they are not being accepted.

“That is driving kids to hurt themselves, that is driving kids to kill themselves. I know that no one wants that so it’s ridiculous that this debate has to keep going on,” he said.

“I actually do believe that it should be mandatory in schools because most kids aren’t bigoted, no-one is born bigoted, they learn bigotry… it is detrimental to kids’ health, so why does this have to continue? Why does the government have to push back?”

Anyone who woke up yesterday morning expecting a run-of-the-mill Monday in politics got a bit of a rude shock when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called at snap press conference mid-morning to announce Australians could be heading to the polls as early as July.

Among other things, the potential Double Dissolution election reshaped news and current affairs agendas yesterday and Q&A was no exception.

The election was the first topic of conversation for last night’s panel, which included Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, independent senator Jacqui Lambie, Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg, feminist campaigner and Fairfax columnist Clementine Ford and business leader Elizabeth Proust.

While it kicked things off with a robust discussion about the need for electoral reform and diversity within the houses of Parliament, it certainly wasn’t the most heated topic of the evening.