How Nick Minchin voted compared to someone who agrees that the federal government should extend any financial and work-related entitlements and benefits that currently only apply to heterosexual couples to same-sex couples and their children

Most important divisions relevant to this policy

These are the most important divisions related to the policy “for extending government benefits to same-sex couples” which Nick Minchin could have attended. They are weighted much more strongly than other divisions when calculating the position of Nick Minchin on this policy.

Division Nick Minchin Supporters vote

18th Sep 2007, 6:07 PM – Senate Tax Laws Amendment (2007 Measures No. 4) Bill 2007 and others - In Committee - Remove discrimination

No Yes

Other divisions relevant to this policy

These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for extending government benefits to same-sex couples” which Nick Minchin could have attended.

Division Nick Minchin Supporters vote

15th Oct 2008, 10:03 AM – Senate Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - Superannuation) Bill 2008 - Second Reading - Remove discrimination

absent Yes

18th Jun 2008, 11:17 AM – Senate Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - Superannuation) Bill 2008 - Referral to Committees - Motion no. 1

Yes No

18th Jun 2008, 11:13 AM – Senate Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - Superannuation) Bill 2008 - Referral to Committees - Report by 24 June 2008

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 2
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) = 0.5 / 36 = 1%.

And then this average agreement score