How David Smith voted compared to someone who agrees that there should be more scrutiny or oversight of the actions and powers of Australian intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP)

Most important divisions relevant to this policy

These are the most important divisions related to the policy “for more scrutiny of intelligence services & police” which David Smith could have attended. They are weighted much more strongly than other divisions when calculating the position of David Smith on this policy.

Division David Smith Supporters vote

28th Jun 2018, 6:54 PM – Senate National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2018 - in Committee - Increasing oversight

No Yes

Other divisions relevant to this policy

These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for more scrutiny of intelligence services & police” which David Smith could have attended.

Division David Smith Supporters vote

10th Dec 2020, 10:57 AM – Representatives Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill 2020 - Consideration in Detail - The 'Howard safeguard'

No No

20th Sep 2018, 12:27 PM – Senate Motions - Right to Privacy - Protect

No Yes

16th Aug 2018, 11:38 AM – Senate Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2018 - Second Reading - Agree with bill's main idea

Yes No

28th Jun 2018, 6:12 PM – Senate National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2018 - in Committee - Sunset provision

No Yes

28th Jun 2018, 10:17 AM – Senate National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2018 and another - Second Reading - Oversight

No Yes

26th Jun 2018, 6:45 PM – Senate Committees - Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee - Refer foreign interference bills

No Yes

How "voted almost always against" is worked out

They Vote For You gives each vote a score based on whether the MP voted in agreement with the policy or not. These scores are then averaged with a weighting across all votes that the MP could have voted on relevant to the policy. The overall average score is then converted to a simple english language phrase based on the range of values it's within.

When an MP votes in agreement with a policy the vote is scored as 100%. When they vote against the policy it is scored as 0% and when they are absent it is scored half way between the two at 50%. The half way point effectively says "we don't know whether they are for or against this policy".

The overall agreement score for the policy is worked out by a weighted average of the scores for each vote. The weighting has been chosen so that the most important votes have a weighting 5 times that of the less important votes. Also, absent votes on less important votes are weighted 5 times less again to not penalise MPs for not attending the less important votes. Pressure of other work means MPs or Senators are not always available to vote – it does not always mean they've abstained.

Type of vote Agreement score (s) Weight (w) No of votes (n)
Most important votes MP voted with policy 100% 25 0
MP voted against policy 0% 25 1
MP absent 50% 25 0
Less important votes MP voted with policy 100% 5 1
MP voted against policy 0% 5 5
MP absent 50% 1 0

The final agreement score is a weighted average (weighted arithmetic mean) of the scores of the individual votes.

Average agreement score = sum(n×w×s) / sum(n×w) = 5.0 / 55 = 9%.

And then this average agreement score