Bill Heffernan voted generally for increasing surveillance powers
How Bill Heffernan voted compared to someone who agrees that the federal government should introduce legislation to increase the powers of intelligence and law enforcement agencies to intercept and retain communications related to persons of interest. These agencies include the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), 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 increasing surveillance powers” 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 |
|---|---|---|
26th Mar 2015 – Senate Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015 - Third Reading - Pass the bill |
absent | Yes |
25th Sep 2014, 9:31 PM – Senate National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 - Third Reading - Pass the bill |
absent | Yes |
22nd Aug 2012, 12:34 PM – Senate Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 - Third Reading - Pass the bill |
absent | Yes |
22nd Aug 2012, 11:53 AM – Senate Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 - In Committee - Agree to amendments introducing limitations on access and disclosure |
absent | No |
Other divisions relevant to this policy
These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for increasing surveillance powers” which Bill Heffernan could have attended.
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 | 4 | |
| Less important votes | MP voted with policy | 100% | 5 | 7 |
| MP voted against policy | 0% | 5 | 1 | |
| MP absent | 50% | 1 | 5 | |
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) = 87.5 / 145 = 60%.
And then this average agreement score
- between 95% and 100% becomes "voted consistently for"
- between 85% and 95% becomes "voted almost always for"
- between 60% and 85% becomes "voted generally for"
- between 40% and 60% becomes "voted a mixture of for and against"
- between 15% and 40% becomes "voted generally against"
- between 5% and 15% becomes "voted almost always against"
- between 0% and 5% becomes "voted consistently against"