How Kerry O'Brien voted compared to someone who agrees that all couples should attract the same rights, entitlements and benefits under Australian law in both the public and private sector, whether they are de facto or married, heterosexual or homosexual

Most important divisions relevant to this policy

These are the most important divisions related to the policy “for equal treatment for all couples” which Kerry O'Brien could have attended. They are weighted much more strongly than other divisions when calculating the position of Kerry O'Brien on this policy.

Division Kerry O'Brien Supporters vote

12th Nov 2008, 6:18 PM – Senate Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - Superannuation) Bill 2008 - In Committee - Private sector

absent Yes

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

Yes Yes

Other divisions relevant to this policy

These are less important divisions which are related to the policy “for equal treatment for all couples” which Kerry O'Brien could have attended.

Division Kerry O'Brien Supporters vote
no votes listed

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 1
MP voted against policy 0% 25 0
MP absent 50% 25 2
Less important votes MP voted with policy 100% 5 0
MP voted against policy 0% 5 0
MP absent 50% 1 0

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) = 50.0 / 75 = 67%.

And then this average agreement score