How Bill Heffernan voted compared to someone who agrees that the federal government should increase water allocations from the Murray-Darling Basin for farmers and other users

Most important divisions relevant to this policy

These are the most important divisions related to the policy “for making more water from Murray-Darling Basin available to use” which Bill Heffernan could have attended. They are weighted much more strongly than other divisions when calculating the position of Bill Heffernan on this policy.

Division Bill Heffernan Supporters vote

21st Nov 2012 – Senate Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Adjustments

absent No

20th Nov 2012, 9:59 PM – Senate Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Adoption of amendments

absent No

20th Nov 2012, 9:41 PM – Senate Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Ground water amendment

absent No

Other divisions relevant to this policy

These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for making more water from Murray-Darling Basin available to use” which Bill Heffernan could have attended.

Division Bill Heffernan Supporters vote

7th Feb 2013, 12:38 PM – Senate Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Buyback cap

Yes Yes

6th Feb 2013, 12:44 PM – Senate Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Timeframe

absent No

6th Feb 2013, 12:34 PM – Senate Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Up to 450 Gigalitres

Yes Yes

6th Feb 2013, 11:34 AM – Senate Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Socioeconomic outcomes

Yes Yes

6th Feb 2013, 10:44 AM – Senate Water Amendment (Water for the Environment Special Account) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Buybacks

Yes Yes

21st Nov 2012, 10:36 AM – Senate Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Protection of communities

Yes Yes

21st Nov 2012, 9:39 AM – Senate Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Modelling

absent No

20th Aug 2012, 3:42 PM – Senate Motions - Murray-Darling Basin - 4000 gigalitres required

absent No

9th May 2012, 4:02 PM – Senate Motions - Murray-Darling Basin - Average annual inflows

Yes Yes

26th Mar 2007, 3:49 PM – Senate Motions - Murray-Darling Basin - Purchase water licences

No No

26th Mar 2007, 3:45 PM – Senate Motions - World Day for Water - South Australian wetlands

No No

7th Dec 2006, 10:03 AM – Senate Motions - Wetlands and Floodplains - Murray Darling

No No

How "voted generally for" 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 0
MP absent 50% 25 3
Less important votes MP voted with policy 100% 5 9
MP voted against policy 0% 5 0
MP absent 50% 1 3

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) = 84.0 / 123 = 68%.

And then this average agreement score