How Bill Heffernan voted compared to someone who agrees that the federal government should increase freedom of political communication in Australia by, for example, protecting people's right to inform others about issues and events in the public interest

Most important divisions relevant to this policy

These are the most important divisions related to the policy “for increasing freedom of political communication” 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 No

26th Nov 2014, 12:47 PM – Senate Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 - Third Reading - Pass the bill

absent No

26th Nov 2014 – Senate Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 - in Committee - Control orders only if support/facilitation already provided

absent No

28th Oct 2014, 9:32 PM – Senate Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 - In Committee - Add extra defences to unauthorise disclosure offence

absent Yes

25th Sep 2014, 9:31 PM – Senate National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 - Third Reading - Pass the bill

absent No

25th Sep 2014 – Senate National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 - in Committee - Remove secrecy provisions

No Yes

13th Sep 2007, 12:39 PM – Senate Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Democratic Plebiscites) Bill 2007 - Second Reading - International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

absent Yes

Other divisions relevant to this policy

These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for increasing freedom of political communication” which Bill Heffernan could have attended.

Division Bill Heffernan Supporters vote

29th Oct 2014, 11:00 AM – Senate Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 - in Committee - Limit who the advocating terrorism offence applies to

No Yes

29th Oct 2014 – Senate Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 - Third Reading - Pass the bill

Yes No

28th Oct 2014, 7:59 PM – Senate Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 — Second Reading - Agree with the bill's main idea

Yes No

14th Nov 2013, 11:34 AM – Senate Motions - Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee Reference - Surveillance

absent Yes

How "voted generally 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 6
Less important votes MP voted with policy 100% 5 0
MP voted against policy 0% 5 3
MP absent 50% 1 1

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) = 75.5 / 191 = 40%.

And then this average agreement score