How Philip Ruddock voted compared to someone who agrees that the federal government should introduce legislation that increases the protection of Australia's fresh water resources, including its river and groundwater systems

Most important divisions relevant to this policy

These are the most important divisions related to the policy “for increasing protection of Australia's fresh water” which Philip Ruddock could have attended. They are weighted much more strongly than other divisions when calculating the position of Philip Ruddock on this policy.

Division Philip Ruddock Supporters vote

21st Mar 2013, 12:38 PM – Representatives Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Bill 2013 - Consideration in Detail - Bilateral agreements

No Yes

Other divisions relevant to this policy

These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for increasing protection of Australia's fresh water” which Philip Ruddock could have attended.

Division Philip Ruddock Supporters vote

16th Jun 2014, 8:07 PM – Representatives Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014 - Second Reading - Read a second time

Yes No

9th Dec 2013, 8:35 PM – Representatives Environment Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 - Consideration in Detail - Keep power to make major environmental approvals with federal minister

No Yes

28th Nov 2012, 8:50 PM – Representatives Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 - Consideration in Detail - Opposition amendment

Yes No

28th Nov 2012, 8:41 PM – Representatives Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 - Consideration in Detail - 450 Gigalitres

No Yes

How "voted consistently 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 0
MP voted against policy 0% 5 4
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) = 0.0 / 45 = 0%.

And then this average agreement score