Sarah Ferguson interviews Treasurer Joe Hockey on 7.30 on budget night. Credit:ABC 7.30 The finding has been rejected by ABC News director Kate Torney and has angered some senior ABC journalists. Fairfax Media understands Ms Ferguson argued internally that she stands by the interview. The audit also finds that Lateline host Emma Alberici would have given the impression of bias by asking a Coalition MP: "Do you think voters are really stupid and can't recognise a lie when they see one?" While acknowledging the Ferguson-Hockey interview was "compelling television", Ms Ryan finds: "I felt that the 'tone' of the questioning in this particular interview could have been interpreted by some viewers to be a potential breach of the ABC's impartiality guidelines." Ms Ryan singles out three points of the interview for criticism, starting with Ms Ferguson's first question to Mr Hockey.

"Now, you've just delivered that budget," Ms Ferguson said. "It's a budget with a new tax, with levies, with co-payments. Is it liberating for a politician to decide election promises don't matter? Ms Ryan found the question was factually correct but said its tone made the Treasurer seem "under attack". "In my view, the language in Ferguson's first question was emotive," she found. "I also believe that the average viewer would consider that the Treasurer was not treated with sufficient respect by the interviewer." Ms Ferguson later told Mr Hockey that she had asked a "yes or no question". She then said: "I don't need to teach you, Treasurer, what a tax is. You know that a co-payment, a levy and a tax are all taxes by any other name." Ms Ryan found: "In my view, these two exchanges do not meet the impartiality guidelines to treat the interviewee 'with civility and respect unless there is a compelling reason not to do so'."

Ms Ryan qualifies her findings by noting that Ms Ferguson "is an aggressive interviewer who treats both sides of politics in the same manner and gives no sense of where her own political views may lay". Mr Hockey's poor performance during the interview would also have had an impact on perceptions of Ms Ferguson's tone, she says. Asked to comment on the findings Ms Ferguson told Fairfax Media: "The interview speaks for itself." Ms Ferguson, a multiple Walkley winner, is currently filming a documentary series for the ABC on the Rudd-Gillard governments. In a response to the audit, Ms Torney wrote: "ABC News does not believe Ms Ferguson's questions were hostile or unbalanced; rather they were astute and prescient.

"The government's capacity to sell the budget measures in light of the election promises remains at the heart of commentary about the government's performance." Ms Ryan found the ABC's budget coverage was "excellent" overall with only three out of 76 analysed items identified for criticism. But she said the broadcaster should have focussed more on the macro-economic aspects of the budget and given more prominence to its in-house business and economics journalists. A 7.30 Tasmania story on welfare cuts was also singled out for being "overwhelmingly negative" to the government. ABC panel program The Drum also erred in an episode by giving two spots to two "obviously pro-Labor panellists" – former Labor speechwriter Michael Cooney and Saturday Paper columnist Mike Seccombe. The ABC board has previously commissioned external audits of its coverage of asylum seekers, the 2013 federal election and its local radio programs.