Photo of Pat Farmer

Pat Farmer voted very strongly against increasing or removing the Government debt limit

How Pat Farmer voted compared to someone who believes that the federal government should increase the limit on the total amount of Commonwealth stock and securities that may be on issue at any time (known as the 'debt limit') or remove the limit altogether

Division Pat Farmer Supporters vote Division outcome

4th Feb 2009, 5:24 AM – Representatives Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Amendment Bill 2009 - Second Reading - Read a second time

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The majority voted in favour of a motion to read the bill for a second time.

This means that the majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) agree with the main idea of the bill and will now decide whether to pass it in the House of Representatives, which subsequently occurred without division.(See Open Australia for this vote. )

Background to the bill

The bill was introduced to amend the Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Act 1911 so that the Treasurer is authorised to increase the cap on the face value of Commonwealth Government Securities on issue by $125 billion in special circumstances.(Read more about the bill here, including its explanatory memorandum and bills digest.) Prior to this, there was a debt limit of $75 billion, which had been introduced by the Commonwealth Securities and Investment Legislation Amendment Act 2008.

References

 No Yes Passed by a small majority

How "voted very strongly against" is worked out

The MP's votes count towards a weighted average where the most important votes get 50 points, less important votes get 10 points, and less important votes for which the MP was absent get 2 points. In important votes the MP gets awarded the full 50 points for voting the same as the policy, 0 points for voting against the policy, and 25 points for not voting. In less important votes, the MP gets 10 points for voting with the policy, 0 points for voting against, and 1 (out of 2) if absent.

Then, the number gets converted to a simple english language phrase based on the range of values it's within.

No of votes Points Out of
Most important votes (50 points)      
MP voted with policy 0 0 0
MP voted against policy 0 0 0
MP absent 0 0 0
Less important votes (10 points)      
MP voted with policy 0 0 0
MP voted against policy 1 0 10
Less important absentees (2 points)      
MP absent* 0 0 0
Total: 0 10

*Pressure of other work means MPs or Senators are not always available to vote – it does not always indicate they have abstained. Therefore, being absent on a less important vote makes a disproportionatly small difference.

Agreement score = MP's points / total points = 0 / 10 = 0.0%.

And then