"And not one person put their name up. And they changed and said, who wants to read a question? "Two people put their hands up and those two people got given a sheet of paper that had the questions on they wanted to answer. They were written down in the pile this lady had that she gave to them and said, 'this is the question you will read'." Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video In an interview with WAtoday Mr Ashworth said he was adamant the organisers of the debate asked whether anyone was planning to question Mr Shorten over franking credits and then handed out such a question when no one said they were. "No one put their hand up because obviously no one had put that as their question," he said.

"She [an organiser] said, 'would anybody else like to add in some questions?' "Two guys put their hands up and so they went over into the corner with her and two sheets of paper came out of the file and she said 'that's that one, and that's that one'. "They said there would be four questions, but there were only two questions asked, and those were the two questions they gave out." Seven News managing editor Ray Kuka disputed Mr Ashworth's version of events. "We did not hand out questions pre-written by us," he said.

"The audience had been briefed by Galaxy YouGov that we'd collect questions from them. "They were provided pen and paper in the waiting room. The audience was given an opportunity to submit questions to our staff right up until they headed down to the studio. "The audience was also briefed on the day's top stories. Some people made last-minute submissions. I suspect this is what the caller observed. "We then chose two questions to be asked."

Mr Kuka said Mr Ashworth may have also seen producers interact with the man who asked the franking credits question. "He did have his paperwork adjusted as he had two questions on the one form," he said. "We preferred his first question and let him know when giving him his paperwork back, with the second question crossed out to avoid confusion live on air." There were two questions asked by the audience to the leaders, one to Mr Morrison on Clive Palmer preferences and the question about franking credits to Mr Shorten. The managing director of the research company which recruited the audience participants said the questions were written by individuals who asked them.

YouGov Galaxy's David Briggs said the audience was given open slather on the questions. "There is some selection process; the audience in this one particular debate got to ask just two questions because the others came from the moderators," he said. "In fact, on arrival each of the audience that we recruited was given a blank sheet of paper and asked to put in their questions so that they could format it any way they wanted to. "If the two guys that did ask the questions were crafted by the folks at Seven Media, you'd have to think the guy at Seven Media would need some media training skills because the questions were not exactly the most eloquent.

"The questions were written by the people who turned up and the organisers did talk about the news of the day, but they spoke about all the things going on at the time." Loading Mr Ashworth said he was paid $50 to take part in the debate audience. He said each audience participant was given a wrist band and the winner was decided when they were dropped into one of three boxes labelled 'Morrison', 'Shorten', and 'Undecided'. "At the end of it when they said it had finished and all the cameras went off and the leaders got up," Mr Ashworth said.