How Eric Abetz voted compared to someone who agrees that the federal government should introduce legislation to protect people who disclose information for the benefit of the public interest and protect the journalists who report it

Most important divisions relevant to this policy

These are the most important divisions related to the policy “for protecting whistleblowers” which Eric Abetz could have attended. They are weighted much more strongly than other divisions when calculating the position of Eric Abetz on this policy.

Division Eric Abetz Supporters vote

14th May 2015, 3:43 PM – Senate Australian Border Force Bill 2015 and related bill - Third Reading - Pass the bill

absent No

25th Sep 2014 – Senate National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 - in Committee - Against increase in penalty for unauthorised disclosure

absent Yes

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

absent Yes

Other divisions relevant to this policy

These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for protecting whistleblowers” which Eric Abetz could have attended.

Division Eric Abetz Supporters vote

10th Nov 2020, 6:28 PM – Senate Economic Recovery Package (Jobmaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020 - in Committee - Transparency

No Yes

23rd Jul 2019, 3:46 PM – Senate Committees - Environment and Communications References Committee - Reference

No Yes

22nd Jul 2019, 4:03 PM – Senate Documents - Commissioner of Taxation - Order for the Production of Documents

absent Yes

4th Jul 2019, 12:49 PM – Senate Committees - Joint Select Committee into the Public's Right to Know and Press Freedom - Appointment

absent Yes

14th May 2015, 1:58 PM – Senate Australian Border Force Bill 2015 and related bill - in Committee - Public interest amendment

absent Yes

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

absent No

19th Mar 2013, 3:47 PM – Senate Motions - Public Interest Disclosure - Protect whistle blowers

absent Yes

8th Feb 2007, 10:37 AM – Senate Motions - Government Accountability and Transparency - Canadian bill

No Yes

How "voted a mixture of for and 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 0
MP absent 50% 25 3
Less important votes MP voted with policy 100% 5 0
MP voted against policy 0% 5 3
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) = 40.0 / 95 = 42%.

And then this average agreement score