Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce says he is "disappointed" that shock jock Kyle Sandilands has been found not to have breached broadcasting standards when he called him an "insensitive wanker" on air.

In May, Mr Joyce threatened to have Hollywood actor Johnny Depp's illegally imported dogs Pistol and Boo killed, unless they were removed from Australia.

The comments got Sydney KISS 1065 host Sandilands riled up, and in an interview a few days later he angrily attacked Mr Joyce.

Sandilands called him "an insensitive wanker", "a gerbil of a thing", "a loser", "an idiot", and told him that he sounded like "an absolute clown".

Mr Joyce's office lodged a complaint with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), arguing that the interview "contained language and behaviour that is outside the acceptable standards and norms of robust political debate and common decency in public broadcasting."

But ACMA dismissed the complaint, saying that Mr Sandilands' language did not breach the Commercial Radio Codes of Practice, and that these were acceptable, given the context and audience.

Mr Joyce said he was disappointed with ACMA's findings.

"What do you need to say to a person before it's beyond the pale?" he told PM.

"If that's all OK then what could possibly be not OK?"

ACMA ruled Barnaby Joyce had been "disrespected" but said that did not constitute a breach ( ABC News: Rebecca Trigger )

Mr Joyce said that while free political comment was one thing, broadcasters carried a greater responsibility than the average person in the street.

"What he said was completely and utterly 180 degrees away from what other people would say was a decent way that one human being talks to another," he said.

"He is a public figure, he's not a person off the street, he's a public figure who makes his money by reason of the granting of a public licence."

Mr Joyce said, as a politician, he had tough skin, and said this was the first time in 10 years he had raised such a concern.

"If this is taken to be the standard norm on how one person talks to another person, then what do we do when we say to people in the classroom, you can't talk to your teacher like that?

"Or we say to one person on the bus, no you can't talk to the bus driver like that?

"How do we have this sort of world where it's alright in one area but it's not alright in the other?"

Comments part of 'robust political debate': ACMA

ACMA's analysis was about eight times longer than the original interview, with a lot of consideration put into Sandiland's comment that Mr Joyce sounded "like an insensitive wanker".

ACMA defined the term "wanker" as:

1. Someone who masturbates. 2. A foolish or objectionable person. 3. A self-indulgent or egotistical person.

It found that the words used were consistent with the second and third definitions, and agreed that it was not sexual in nature.

It also said that the program's normal listeners would have understood the context of the word, and its use in the Australian vernacular.

"In this sense, the use of the word, while again disrespectful, does not constitute a breach of the decency provision within the context of a robust political debate on a controversial topic where apparently heated statements were made by both participants," ACMA said.

In comments made after the interview ended, ACMA noted that Mr Sandilands had referred to Minister Joyce as "just a gerbil of a thing".

The licensee argued, "This was a reference to a small mammal and nothing more.

"This did not include any depiction or description that was sexual in nature, nor any sexual connotation."

ACMA agreed it did not reach a level of offence which would have breached the code.

"While the ACMA is aware of colloquial meanings that could be inferred from the comment, the lack of surrounding material supporting any such inferences renders the remark innocuous or, at worst, ambiguous."

The owner of KISS, the Australian Radio Network, said it had been notified that there was no breach of the Commercial Radio Australia Codes of Practice and was satisfied with the outcome.